


sun_tapes.mkv

by Heiney



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Arson, Bisexuality, Camera Operator Eren, Coming of Age, Crossdressing, Diary/Journal, F/M, Half Mexican Eren, Half Russian Levi, Implied Relationships, Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin) Wears Lingerie, M/M, Non-Sexual Bondage, Oral Sex, Overstimulation, Pyromania, Self-Esteem Issues, Tourette's Syndrome
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-27
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2018-08-30 17:51:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 99,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8542990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heiney/pseuds/Heiney
Summary: Pennsylvania. Spring. The local radio station reports a fire outbreak near the trailer park.Some people say they peaked in high school. I'm pretty sure I peaked at birth and my life's been going downhill ever since. I used to think living alone would be some kind of a luxury, but losing my housemate and best friend, Jean, to the State of Goddamn Ohio makes me realize how unsavory Bailey's tastes in solitude. To avoid sounding miserable every time Jean calls, I let a seventeen-year-old transfer student move in with me. The gist of it: he's hot. Our friendship takes a more intimate turn not long after he moves in, and I begin believing in lousy things; like fate, love, and Dollar Tree price tags.A farmhouse near our neighborhood is set on fire. Not long after, the radio announces a possible pyromaniac on the loose. Invested in the arson continuously committed in my hometown, I sign up for a documentary film contest in NYC. The extensive research leaves me several steps ahead of the police, and I rapidly come to a conclusion my new housemate just isn't who I think he is.





	1. Eren's Inferno (First Circle)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, reader, you might know me through 006! 006 is getting a sequel-ish thing within the next 20 years (I'm bad at scheduling things and my sense of time simply does not exist as a concept).  
> No pre-existing knowledge of Attack on Titan is necessary to read this. You might not like my characterization or find everything too complicated, and that's fine. Before reading, however, understand that this story is quite lengthy, touches on mental illness, eventually includes consensual underage (17 and 21) sex and study on pyromania.
> 
> [Gazastrippin](https://gazastrippin.tumblr.com) on Tumblr.
> 
> [Playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/hentaivert/playlist/2rND5iE0iUjELcUuuIYn1o) here.
> 
> [PayPal](paypal.me/nickfrancesmiller) if you ever want to help out.

Journal entry: 

_There’s nothing quite like waking up to the sound of my housemate’s ex-girlfriend throwing a fit in our driveway._

_The two windows to my room are almost always open. She was already at the "who are you talking to now" part of her monologue when I got out of bed, so I didn’t expect the tantrum to last any longer. Jean was on the brink of tears and wore my basketball shorts._

_Having keyed my car, this girl also had the audacity to shove him around and blow up a scene that attracted early morning puppy walkers and the black couple two houses away. Our neighborhood is a silent one, so this was quite disturbing to witness. By the time she said she’s going to "literally fucking skin him", everyone down the block had probably heard them argue and thought the creamy house on this avenue was a loony bin. Which it, essentially, is._

_Al mal tiempo, buena cara, that’s what mamá would say. It roughly translates to "stay positive, even at your worst", which is what I’m trying to do right now._

_¡Puta mierda! ¿Qué mierda le pasa a ella? Besa mi culo, puto! Chingate!_

_That’s also something she would say. But it doesn’t mean a whole lot of good things, let me add that._

_Since I’m the eldest and only other man in the house we’re sharing, it wasn’t debatable who’s going to march down the stairs in boxers and bust Jean out of this situation. Besides letting Katherine know exactly what I think of her and saying a lot of mean things I normally wouldn’t, I had a fun call with my coworkers to scare her away._

_By now, a few hours after the incident, Jean had already ordered walnut cheesecake from Postmates, called my parents and apologized for the car. To both them and me. It was my graduation gift and also the only good thing about my graduation._

_My personal problems stem from my petty attachment to worldly things. The good part is that I’ve only cried about the scraped sides of my Impala twice. Jean promised he’d get it painted over as a birthday present, but my birthday is tomorrow. I figured I’d patch it up with spray paint for now, until I save up for a proper repaint, or a new car. Jean very willingly let me use his Mustang, which I’m fine with._

_Kath used to be Jean’s girlfriend for over a year until he decided moving in with his dad and studying in Ohio was a great idea, and they broke up. She didn’t like a speck of it and made him promise they’d get together again once (if) he moves back to Pennsylvania. Reluctant, he did. It’s the end of March now; he’s dropped out of school and returned home due to financial problems and his mom having serious health issues. That’s where it got real fun._

_Having moved on several times while in Ohio, Jean changed, whereas Katherine got stuck in a loop of trust, mistrust and anxiety. I had the rare opportunity to document her mental state deteriorate as she spent most Sunday evenings at our house, talking to me. Mostly about how neglectful he’s been. She seethed with insecurity and made herself believe he never loved her. At one point something shut her up and we stopped texting, so I assumed they broke off, because it’s been rough like that ever since._

_Now Jean is trying to settle things. It’s not going as smoothly as he thought it would. Everyone’s telling him to file a restraint, but police officer Teddy doesn’t believe a man might want a restraint. And I don’t think Jean’s got what it takes, that joke of a man. He could never tell her it’s time to move on. Even this morning, to my surprise, he could barely utter a couple words on how sorry he is. It almost feels like he still loves her, but is tired of her spiky mental outbursts and wants something new, more collected and low-maintenance._

_Maybe that’s just a projection of what I want. Me, me, me. I can’t believe I overcome my next decade tomorrow. These have been truly scandalous 365 days since my last “coming of age” year. That’s what mamá said. She never believed that herself, but loved to tell everyone who bothered listening._

_It’s late March. The air outside is still crisp and it hurts to breathe, but it’s not as bad as February. It’s quite fucking awful during winter._

_Funny how all of March I’ve been pretty decent and the day before my 21 st birthday I haven’t felt this awful in months. I don’t necessarily think it’s the car that got keyed; I’ve just been feeling like shit overall. Just yesterday I wound up listening to Neutral Milk Hotel and crying because I felt so old. So incredibly old. _

* * *

Having settled with Katherine, Jean and I go upstairs, to the guest room. He apologizes several times and lets me know what a great friend I am for putting off another mental episode. I don’t listen. I mean, I do, but keep nodding. I’m just so sure this will happen again that I don’t fight it.

“That’s swell,” I nonchalantly tell him once he’s done talking.

“Please don’t tell my mom,” he immediately says. "Please. She'll skin me. She liked Kath so much."

“Oh, you mean she wouldn’t notice I'm driving around with shreds of what's left of my car? The word "loser" is _scraped_ on my trunk."

"She tends to ignore some things, or at least act like she does. Like me, or my fourteenth birthday."

"I think she chose to ignore your birth, Jean. Maybe she’ll have the brain capacity to file a restraint if you don’t. Then again, my god, I don’t care.” I fix my glasses. They slide low on my nose; it’s hot in the room. “I’m probably moving out in late August, and Kath, to full extent, will be your problem again.”

“I’ve got one more year of college and I’m moving to Ohio forever,” Jean proudly states. Ohio isn't going to make him a better person, but everyone knows he religiously thinks so. Ohio is equivalent to his mother's green juice cleanse every late spring and fall.

“Well, cool.”

“It costs nothing to be a nice person.”

“It costs about as much as a car repaint, _mi vida.”_

He puckers his lips right before pressing them back together.

Unlike Jean and all his aspirations, _I’ll_ rot away in New York as some high class scenarist and dream of a loving goth wife. Eventually, I’ll find her, we’ll buy a homestead in the Alps, get some livestock, and I’ll eat cheese for the rest of my life. But that, my friends, is the perfect scenario in a setting that wouldn’t ever occur. In reality, I’m kind of deranged. Deranged and, god, really confused. I don't know what I'm doing. I don’t think I’d be the type to get married. I just don’t work that way, and I don’t want to have what Jean has—or has had. Or will have—he’s awful at this. He’s got a lot of love to give, though, and I never wanted that kind of thing. The love you feel like you have to show the entire world to make valid. The one that is possessive, lifelong, the kind that consumes you whole. Marriage, in short, is corrupt.

Jean falls back in my bed and checks his phone. “Sunday already...” He silently informs, but it sounds more like a wilting hope I'd correct him and say, "No, it's just Saturday."

Currently I’m just wishing I knew whose idea was it to put the air conditioners in this house everywhere but my bedroom. I mostly sleep here, in the guest room—so it’s fine, but holy shit, what a nightmare if I didn’t. Summers are exceptionally humid and you tend waking up like a discarded wax museum exhibit in the middle of the Mojave. It’s spring now and a fully heated house doesn’t feel any different than that.

“Do you think my room was originally a storage?” I point at the air conditioner. “This works brilliantly, I wish I had it.”

He ignores me. “You work tomorrow?”

“Until about eight. But I’ll work from home.” I have an editorial deadline.

“Oh. Well—your sister and I thought we could take you to a soup place, but I guess that’s not happening. They close at nine. I assumed you’d feel better about being this old if you stuffed your face with soup and garlic bread.”

I meekly smile. “You’re right. I can’t call off, though. Plus I kind of had other plans with the people from your editing class, who, _by the way,_ claimed you’re coming with. No idea if you’re informed, but that’s what they said.”

Jean sits up, phone still in hand, but his expression varies from puzzled to the trademark perpetually angry; it’s my look and he stole it. “Yeah. Well. _Yeah_. They _were_ talking about going to Blue Salem.”

“Blue Salem?”

“Have you not been out at all? Blue Diamond is now Blue Salem, for whatever reason.”

Oh. Blue Diamond used to be my favorite bar. It’s very chic. Most people I meet there I end up befriending. But I haven’t gone out too much lately, due to work and general unwillingness, so I wouldn’t know anything about it.

“Blue Salem sounds enticing,” I confess. “Like a strip club.”

“Would you rather if I took you to a strip club?”

“No. No, I don't think so.” My eyes travel to the dirty window. “I’m not really—not really up for it. I don’t know. We’ll think of something as the night goes on. Isn’t the church across the road called Salem Ridge? That's really odd and really symbolic.”

“It is,” he says, but keeps stressing the strip club topic. ”I’ll tell Malibu to take you to a strip club, how about that?”

“Who?”

“Armin. The one you deemed as cool two years ago? He lives just downtown. I think he makes the sepia films, let me think.” Jean tries ripping his sock apart by the hole on his big toe. “Yeah, he makes the sepias.”

“I know who Armin is. What kind of a nickname is Malibu?”

He tilts his head towards me and simultaneously makes an obnoxious retching sound. “He always smells like that baby wipe Caribbean rum.”

“All the times I’ve talked to him he’s seemed pretty fine to me.” I say that, but somehow know what he’s talking about. There’s a very distinctive artificial coconut smell that makes my throat burn whenever we talk. We don’t talk a whole lot, Armin and I, but that’s a good one. I’d like him to take me to a strip club. I wish he did that.

Jean scrunches his nose. Considering how dense his freckles are, he looks tanner than he ever has. “He’s just weird,” he tries proving his point. “Real weird. With the glazed eyes and all that. Our class went drinking after Connie came back from Houston. Armin is, like… He’s, like, way too scrawny to drink as much as he does.”

"I think his films are neat.”

“I think they’re pretty disastrous. He’ll probably die before he hits 20." Jean frowns. "Stop moving your eyebrows.”

“I have Tourette’s, Jean.” My nose itches really bad as I’m saying this. I get up and scoop up my hoodie from the armrest of my chair. In the process of pulling it over my head, I turn back to my friend and make another attempt to look like a better person. “If I hadn’t left your circle jerking community, Armin would’ve been my best friend. We’d blaze up after work and eat steak. I _need_ the kind of San Francisco origin weird dude, who, at some point, has had way too much of something.”

“Of what?”

“Of something! I don’t know what, I just threw it out there.” I flatten the fabric on my chest. “Like, Reese’s cups, or applesauce.” Or sour cream with chili mix and shredded cheese. The second I take a breath to say, “I take that back, Reese’s are great”, Jean’s phone blares the beat of one of those Authentic Apple Ringtones and the name “Mother 2” lights up.

I snicker. I snicker about the contact names every single time I see anyone calling him.

“Hello, my beloved birther!” The change of his tone is very obvious. “Yeah, we’re just fine. Happy early birthday from my mom, Eren.” He glances over at me, motioning his neck being slit. I just smile.

“Oh, yeah? Carla called?”

 _Mamá_ called. My sheepish grin falters like his voice does at _mamá's_ name, and I bite my thumb at that. 

“Ask her if she maybe wants sushi,” I suddenly mention, before anyone explodes.

“Would you maybe want sushi?” Jean quickly repeats. I hear her yell from the speaker in response. Jean’s mom shouldn’t be happy about my Impala, and it doesn’t sound like she is. I can bet two years worth of laundry days she’ll want to get a repaint for my birthday, just like Jean did. They’re literally the same person.

Instead of the repaint everyone’s forcing onto me as if it's something corresponding to marriage, they could help me find an apartment so I don’t have to live in the ugliest, most mediocre-looking ghost-colored house on the block. I’m tired of sharing this place with Jean, and sharing in general. Our house can’t even be compared to any neighbor houses around, this one was just affordable; my family initially owned it and still do. The rest of the neighborhood's houses aren't as goddamn lousy and only four have a pool. Our pool is empty. It’s probably been empty since the beginning of time. The drain is stuffed with leaves and moss, and since it’s too small to be somehow relevant anyways, we just don’t care and let it sink in the backyard as an antique décor.

“Yeah, I get it. No. No.” I watch his teeth sink in his left cheek, amused by her language. Jean’s mom never struck me as someone who’d say “fucking asshole”. “Please, calm down. No, Eren has nothing to do with this. Oh my god, no, he didn't _fuck_ Kath.”

“Oh, _yikes_ ,” I whisper, quite out of it, still thinking about the pool.

Jean gives me an exasperated glare, his phone pressed against his chest. “She wants to talk to you.”

“About what? Me fucking Kath?”

“Right?” He snarls and picks it back up. “What do you want from him? I’ll tell him. He’s making, uh.” Jean looks around the room, but fails to find a clock to check the time. I guess he deems the day as freshly begun, because what he says next is, “He’s making breakfast.”

“It’s two in the afternoon,” I whisper, having peeked at my watch.

“Lunch. He's making lunch. I’m on DayQuil and had a night shift.” He pinches the bridge of his nose, then stares at a distant point in the room for quite a while, and finally turns back to me once she replies. “It’s about the repaint.”

Of course it's about the repaint, there go my two years of laundry days. I take the phone from him. Talking to his mom isn’t too hard. I don’t have to swallow throat clumps or rub the sides of my thighs anymore. When Jean first introduced us, I thought I was going to die, but it’s alright now. It’s been alright ever since she started calling me honey—it’s a very homey attribute. Jean’s mom is just fine. I wouldn’t say she’s not attractive, but her son looks very much like her, and that’s what bothers me. They're both hard on the eyes. Jean maybe lacks the bodily volume, but they’re mother and son alright. 

“Hi,” I cutely say. Jean actually leans in and smacks the back of my head, going out of his way to show how much he hates us interacting. “Everything fine?”

**“Eren! Honey, I’m really sorry about your car.”**

“I somehow expected you’d say that.”

**“What the hell else could I say? We’ll get that fixed, okay? It’s not your fault. You shouldn’t be involved in this. Katherine called me and repetitively proclaimed how Jean is a dirty cheater and that she wants him back.”**

I make a face. “Why does she call you? That’s really weird. She thinks Jean has a thing with a cousin of mine.”

**“Well, does he?”**

“The joke is that I don’t have any cousins.” Her mature hum-like laughter fills my ear, to which I smile. “I do, but it ruins the joke. That doesn’t mean anyone should go easy on Jean, though. He’s kind of shit.”

**“I can’t believe you’re so passive after what happened. Carla said Jean took it worse than you did. She said he cried. Wasn’t the car your birthday present?”**

“Graduation present. I don’t know. I’m just not too shaken by it. I cried, too.”

“He’s dissociating,” Jean murmurs from my left.

**“What is he saying?”**

“Some dumb shit. My car is fine. If you spoke to my mom, you know what happened.”

 **“Did any of you call the police?”** She asks.

Like officer Teddy would believe me if I said a girl was on the loose. The sheriff might, he might even charge Kath, but his own daughter is currently fucking Jean, so that’s a no-no.

“No, come on. The car’s just scraped. There’s no real evidence, so no police action is being taken. This isn’t as big of a deal as everyone’s making it. I _did_ call one of my coworkers from the theatre while standing next to her and pretended I’m ringing 911. He played along, so I put him on speakers. It was fine. It was great, actually.”

“God, aren’t you just _so_ smart?” Jean imitates his mom’s voice and thick Slovenian accent. I shove him off my bed and he goes to sit on the windowsill.

I hear her sigh. **“Again, I’m very sorry, Eren. I'm sorry these things happen to you.”**

“It’s fine. Cajun turkey fillet next Saturday is also very fine. It’s not like I’m mad.”

Jean then theatrically groans from all across the room and walks back over to the bed I’m lying on. “Give me the phone.” He protrudes his hand.

“I’m still talking to her,” I reply.

“I don’t care. I want this embarrassment to end and you need to take the trash out.”

I turn back to the phone. “Your son is obnoxious and wants to talk to you again.”

The loud click of her tongue surprises me. **“I’ll talk to him tonight and see if we can work out the repaint any soon. I'm bothered by this. It was nice talking to you, however, you should visit us sometime. I haven't seen Carla in months. I’m glad you two are doing well, boys.”**

Oh, we never are! Not me, anyways. I’m never really fine. I’m the saddest boy you’d ever happen to meet. Saddest boy on the planet, in this universe.

“That’s nice of you,” I lull.

“Eren, phone.”

**“Lock him in the basement."**

I flash Jean a dirty look. He wriggles his fingers in dissatisfaction.

“He’s rude. I’ll talk to you sometime.”

**“Have a happy birthday, honey.”**

I hand the phone back to Jean’s patiently waiting claw (not that he seems too gleeful about that) and stand up. Not willing to listen to the rest of this conversation, I head downstairs and pour myself a glass of juice to be alone for a while.

The incident happened at around eight in the morning. Kath’s motivation to come over at eight and scrape “loser” on my car is still mysterious to me. To give more insight on this issue, I’d like to point out the fact that she knows what my car looks like, that it is very distinctively different from Jean’s, and that this was the _only_ time I’d left it out overnight; the windshield washer fluid was leaking. I didn’t want that to happen in the garage.

Contemplating this was some kind of an evil conspiracy, or maybe just the universe getting back at me for being born, I also realize I’m still in boxers and stalk off to the laundry room to fetch a pair of shorts and socks.

* * *

Journal entry: 

_And so has come the day I dreaded, March 30 th. It’s 4:09 in the morning, and as I mysteriously expected a thousand years prior, nobody wants to do anything for my birthday. How uncanny! I’m glad I prepared myself to be disappointed. I always lower my standards for everything. If I didn’t, I’d probably be crying in the bathroom with a mouthful of blueberry waffles and forcefully conditioned hair, with my sister banging on the door, yelling: “I see why nobody wants to be your friend! I see!”_

_Don’t you think that’s oddly specific?_

_Instead of wailing, I masturbated and smoked in the house for once. The cold out on the balcony would undoubtedly kill off my savory post-orgasm haze. It’s just unasked for. Nobody ever wanted March to be like that._

_Last week, mamá said her kale survived the winter. When I mentioned I also survived the winter, she called me an idiot. I can’t decide how I feel about being this old. I think I like it. I do feel my hips breaking when I walk now. Old man? Geezer? Stay tuned._

* * *

I had planned to wake up early to make at least somewhat symbolic birthday breakfast. It’s no mindblower Jean wouldn’t move a finger in my favor. But besides waking up at four in the morning and being dawned upon that my housemate has eaten probably everything up-to-date, that whole ordeal didn’t really work. And so I found myself writing down some god-awful thoughts and to-dos with a dish of leftover spaghetti. It smells like the can of tuna Jean opened last Tuesday and never finished. I discovered said can by moving a carton of eggs and slipping my finger in some gooey goodness.

I look at the journal, at my list for the day, and want to jump off someplace high.

  * _Groceries, but with Jean’s Mustang, which makes the process somewhat bearable;_
  * _Editorial deadline, editorial deadline, editorial deadline;_
  * _Call mamá (complain, ~~ask about house~~ );_
  * _Call Christa (complain, ~~ask to come over~~ );_
  * _Forget about editorial deadline @ 8;_
  * _Birthday messages;_
  * _E-mail Hitch, ask about camera lens (remind her it’s your birthday for sympathy)._



Hey, that’s not too bad, now is it, Eren? It’s almost as if your birthday is by no means a special day. It’s almost as if the editorial deadline is by no means impacted by the fact that you turn 21.

I’m a theatre technician most of the time. My camera operator (“cameraman” sounds just a hunch better) job is more of a hobby. I film and edit, and while I do that, I keep wishing I could land a spot in broadcast news someday. For now, I do interviews, help out with weird high school projects, participate in film festivals and do research on documentaries. I get paid for those, but not much.

I’m not saying there’s absolutely nothing to do in my area as a camera operator, it’s just that you’ve really got to be on a hunt if you want to earn more. That’s why I go out to the city often. There are jobs in Washington and I’ve stayed in New York plenty of times. I lived in Maine for a year, but then realized I wanted to be closer to my family and friends. Working away from home has never been a problem, but I’m still not ready to sacrifice the ones close to me. I do believe that might change soon if Jean moves to Ohio.

I hate the fact that I have to work on my birthday. Then again, what fucking difference does it make? Birthdays kind of stop being relevant as you grow older, and you don’t get days off of work to go to an amusement park or drive down to the beach.

With hands heavy as lead, I scribble one more bullet point on the list.

  * _Craigslist housing ads._



What wrecks me the hardest is this one. For multiple reasons, but the main being the scary sensation of moving on. I’ve lived here with Jean for two years now. Either one of us has to move out first to make the other realize the house is too big for him. Be it Jean or be it me, as long as we both live here, nothing is going to change. And, see, there’s a microscopic problem—I could pay for the house if I lived here alone, but Jean couldn’t, because he doesn’t have nearly any income. He works retail because he’s 19 in a week and still in college. I’m not in college and my parents own this house. Who has the upper hand? Me. If I move out, it’s almost as if I’m making Jean leave. I don’t want to force him to do anything, but him leaving is the only way I myself can muster up the courage to.

God, I wish I had more adventure in my life. I wish something mind blowing happened to me. It’s so bland. I know moving out would spice things up, but this is too good. This is too convenient. We didn’t have to pay a penny to inhibit my _abuelo’s_ house. Its condition is good enough for two low-standard people to live in it, but too bad to sell. Two stories plus a basement, high, wooden façade glory with a built-in fireplace and all. Enormous garden, apple and plum trees in the back; during spring, when they bloom, it smells so vividly of honey. If the pool hadn’t been so neglected, it would add a ting of blue to the picture. The color of the planks is peeling off on the corners, and all four entrance doors creak terribly, but I wouldn’t find a more comforting place if I tried.

Sometimes I wish I lived here alone. Sometimes I think of being in the sunroom, with a bottle of damn wine and music; all that glory, all to myself. I think of walking around naked, unbothered, cooking, unbothered. Maybe I’d get lonely and think of having someone with me, but maybe I’m just so used to having Jean around he has bored me to death.

I sit still in my chair for a couple of seconds until I realize I could’ve been working on something already. Silently humming Happy Birthday to myself, I open the project I have to edit. Then, with a slight change of mind, I pick up my pen and write down everything I just thought about.

* * *

 _March 30 th, afternoon. Turns out Jean isn’t as bad as I thought,_ says my journal entry. _I got a few gift cards and he almost forcefully drove me to Cowans Gap for a hike. I’m not sure whether this is his way of expressing gratitude for yesterday, my birthday present or if his mom told him to, but he got us expensive Mexican for dinner. I almost feel spoiled now. He even dressed up. I felt kind of lousy in my jeans and Rush t-shirt; I hadn’t changed it since Friday._

_I think he knows my depression meals are usually just any garbage Mexican food. Quesadillas from the corner shop. 7-Eleven's rare churros._

_I love Jean. He just…knows._

* * *

“Happy bee, baby.” Christa hands me a wrapped box and leans in to kiss my cheek. Whatever she says next gets silenced by the background music, but I do attempt to utter something polite back and scoot over to the other side of the cushy seat. She sits down. Blue Salem is packed tonight.

“I got you a gin and tonic,” I say, pushing the glass over to her. This is probably the only drink she willingly consumes. Her present drops from the table to my lap, and I give it a light tap. “What’s in it?”

“Why don’t you open it up and see?”

I tilt to the side to let Christa see that behind me are heaps of boxes and envelopes, all untouched. “I’m saving everything for later,” I explain. “I like it better that way. God, you know that.”

“I know that, _hermano.”_

Christa, despite being my sister, is my polar opposite. It’s weird. We share the same parents. I know I sure don’t look much different than any other mixed baby, especially now, with my post-winter pastiness; the mulatto kid of our family. During a good, busy summer, I go down to a crisp milk chocolate tone. _Mamá_ is Mexican, my _papá's_  white. Somewhat. His background was always ambiguous and I strongly believe his father was Jewish.

I’m the healthy ox kid, fallen on the creative spectrum, dark, with coily hair, very flamboyant, indecisive and short-tempered, whereas Christa resembles those lithe fairies in flower dresses you can read about in any fantasy book, skin so pale you can almost see through it, bones brittle and legs long. Even her light hair used to reach down to her waist, contributing to the whole fairy theme; now it’s an angled bob.

Most of my friends are here. There are people I don’t know and I notice some of my old classmates who came to greet me once they recalled what the hell I looked like. Jean’s entire editing class came to celebrate my big day and showered me in presents. Too bad I’m awful at presents; I might be having a wonderful time otherwise. I had to keep murmuring “thanks” and “thank you so much” while looking anywhere but at the boys, because I didn’t know what else to do.

Oddly, this place doesn't reek. Bars and nightclubs have a tendency to have that foul smell of cigarettes, incense and sweat. This one doesn't. But then I wonder if I'm just used to the cigarettes, or if it's their trademark thing not to stink. Oh, and the walls here look ancient. I like the structured brick pattern. The edges of all tables are stylishly worn. If you pay attention, you notice the car license plates on a few of the vertical supporting beams. A lot of posters, too, pictures from birthdays and live music nights. Flags. Band flags and country flags.

 _“Hermano_ , did Jean take care of this?” Christa asks and waves her hand around. “We should come here more often. Why don’t we ever come here anymore?”

“Mikasa did. I’m in love with the projector.” My lips find the straw of my root beer glass. I gladly avoid the question on not going out. “And all my friends get free drinks.”

I’m happy she noticed the decorations. Probably because of the very large poster that says “YOU WON’T BELIEVE HE’S THIS OLD”. There’s also a movie being played on the only blanched wall. Otherwise, all the paper chains and lights are what Mikasa always pulls out for birthday celebrations. But it is amped up, I admit.

Christa looks over her shoulder, to inspect the rest of Mikasa’s work. “Wow. Well, I don’t work tomorrow. Can I stay over?”

“The plan is to move the party to my house in about two, three hours. If that works for you, come. Jean has an early shift, so he’s going to stay over at Mikasa's.”

Her face expressed only sympathy.

“You can sleep in his room,” I add.

The current bar owner, Mikasa, is the sheriff’s daughter. Not police officer Ted's, the sheriff’s. We’ve known each other ever since I could remember myself walking. My _papá_  owns a storage business and her dad’s been renting three units since the beginning of time. And when you’re a cop at 30-something and have a prepubescent kid who wants friends but doesn’t have any solely _because_ of the fact that you’re a cop, you, too, would feel quite sympathetic. In this case, you talk to any adult you can possibly think of and ask them: “Hey, you got any kids? Any nieces my little girl could play with?”

I pull out a pack of Camels and put it on the table without thinking too much. It then hits me Christa doesn’t know I smoke, so I slide my hand back over the traitorous blue box in an attempt to hide it. Her eyes pierce my hand. _Pinche idiota!_ I was seventeen when I was last scolded about this. Smoking to me has never been a huge deal and I just picked it back up.

 _“Mamá_ would gladly disown you if she found out,” she announces, as if I didn’t know that. “That’s really shitty for you, Eren.”

 _Mamá's_  dad—our _abuelo_ , whose house I inhibited—died from lung cancer. Excessive smoking and working with smokers led him to a quick and painless death. And her brother has tuberculosis. She believes lung problems are in the family. Christa also follows _mamá's_  weird weak lung fad, despite toking every weekend.

“Saint baby sister. Like you don’t smoke pot, you fake.” I sneak a cigarette out of the pack with my lips and don’t forget to offer her one, too. She shakes her head, so I leave it be. “Siblings are supposed to protect each other, so please be nice.”

“Pot is fine.”

“Pot is pot, my dear.”

“Where’s Jean?” She swiftly changes the topic.

“I think he’s talking to Mikasa.”

“They a thing now?”

Before answering, I take my time to light the cigarette. This is my favorite lighter. Jean gave it to me last Christmas. It can be refilled with butane. It’s bright blue, in the approximate shade of my sister’s eyes, and has a scribble from Jean on the back. I lift it up next to her face to compare and come to conclude it’s almost the same color.

“Maybe. They do fuck real loud,” I silently mention, leaning over Christa’s cocktail glass for discretion. The umbrella in her drink clings to my shirt and I pick it off. “Real loud and real weird. I did _not_ recommend pursuing anything, if you’re wondering, it just happened. Jean’s got a lot of unsustainable women on his list that might give Mikasa a hard time if they found out our beloved ones are seeing each other.”

“You’re kidding me. He’s too young for her.” She pauses. “He’s too young for anyone. He's _stupid.”_

I spitefully push the cigarette back between my lips. “Not really. He’s just five years younger. She likes him.”

“That’s a lot. He’s still in school and she's, like...going through menopause.”

“How about 24 and 18?” I relentlessly continue. “Ymir was 24 when I was 18, and that worked out just _great_.”

“For you, yeah.” Christa stirs her drink. “You probably thought it’s near damn near great to live with an attractive woman who pays for your shitty little trips to Las Vegas and god knows where else.”

“That was my internship program and I only lived with her because she wanted me to.”

“She was really into you.”

“Yeah,” I say, blowing hair out of my face. “I know.”

That might’ve seemed too narcissistic.

Neither of us said anything for a while. I down my glass of root beer and ask the waiter for a refill. While he's was busy with that, I finish the grimy cigarette that now makes me think of dying _abuelos_ and such things.

Turning twenty-one is likely around time to hit a life plateau. I’ve undoubtedly hit it, bounced off of it, and then hit it again, plenty of times. Nothing feels right. Nowhere feels right. No one feels in any way adequate to be around. I’m all over the place, but also very intact. And now I find it funny that, what, around a month ago, my sister said December might feel the same way if I don’t work on it—it’s late March now, and I’m quite obviously not working on it. I do try eating well, regularly, not in front of an open project on my laptop or the TV. I get plenty of exercise. If Christa stays over, she makes me do yoga. Jean and I, we hike a bunch. When I wasn’t neck-deep into editing, I used to go out and meet new people. I drove to Bethesda every other weekend. I slept with whomever I found eccentric enough; I got obsessed with trying to just get an ounce of romantic affection.

To add some more ominous material I can blame myself for later, continuously being the shit I am, I, of course, didn’t do anything about my editorial deadline, writing my birthday off as an excuse. I still have a week left to work on that. I do know what I have coming up in April: a relatively big modeling shoot in Washington I’m definitely not ready for, that's what. I called Hitch and asked her about the camera lens I so desperately want for this project, but she said she rented it out two weeks ago and only expects it back mid-April.

I then remember something and rapidly turn to Christa, who, in response, chokes on her gin and tonic.

“Sorry,” she says and stirs the drink with her finger. “I’m still trying to recover from today. I need to, like, meditate.”

"How was the job interview? How’d my girl do?”

“A bit shit,” she allows and chugs half her drink. “They said they’ll call me back by the end of this week. Means they probably won’t.”

“ _Chica_ , you’re smart.”

"Smart girls don't listen to their brothers, Eren."

"You are currently being incorrect," I say, each word enunciated. "Your brother is extremely gifted. I've heard he's amazing."

Christa is aiming for a secretary position at AT&T. Right now she looks drunk and frustrated, but there’s usually a nice glow to her that buys all the job interviews. She's never had any issue with finding a job up until she got fired for the first time from a place called Maury's. Or Moby's, don't quote me on this. For _being late_. My sister, the person to have A-Z plans for everything, weeks before execution. But they have a history of firing people for stupid reasons. They fired the head chef the week before 4th of July (the busiest week of the year) with no replacement, just because him and the owner didn't really see eye to eye. The whole kitchen went downhill and crashed on their busiest days.

She sighs really loud, and I fall back in the seat with my eyes closed to take it all in for a second. The second my back meets the worn leather, a hand lands on my left shoulder. I jump at the mention of my name and the hard slap; unregistered physical contact goes quite poorly on my side. 

Mikasa swims up behind me. “Hey, birthday boy,” she says and pecks my cheek.

“Could you please _avoid_ doing that?”

“No,” she says. I watch her walk around the table and push my presents asides to free herself a seat. “Hi, Christa. Jean said you applied to AT&T. How’d it go? Eren said you might not make it.”

I pale. "I didn't say that, Christa."

“I don’t know," Christa slowly stirs her drink with her pinky finger. "They should call me in a week.”

“My friend worked there. He said his colleagues made him shred fifty pictures of their boss _in the boss' office_ before he made it to his first conference.”

Christa looks like she’s about to die.

“Mikasa, this isn’t helping,” I mention.

“I know.” She tucks some loose hair behind her ears. The rest of it is pulled back under a burgundy beanie. “I actually came to pick _you_ up. I want you to meet someone.”

Christa silently claps. My brows shoot up in poorly hidden curiosity and I straighten my back. “Meet who?”

“You’ll see.”

I meaningfully look at my sister, and she stands up so I could get out of the corner seat. While sliding out of the horseshoe booth, I grab my pack of cigarettes and light a new one. Mikasa takes me by the elbow and drags me towards her table. I look to the side where Jean is. He’s talking to Armin; they’re both drinking beer.

The projector is playing Dogfight. 

“Who is this someone you want me to meet?” I cautiously ask again, because I don’t feel like setting myself up for disappointment.

“My cousin, Levi. At least cousin in some sense. We’re not really alike, I don’t think so. He moved here a week ago, from Virginia, and he needs friends.”

"Cousin?"

"I have many cousins, my dear child. I'm on my period, wait." She pulls at her jeans. "Holy shit, my sternum is on fire, for some reason."

“Is he cool?”

“Oh, he’s very cool. He’s European.” Europe, to Mikasa, isn't on our planet. She doesn't register Europe as a real, existing place. 

“You just said Virginia.” I frown. She’s not being too coherent tonight. I figure it’s maybe the alcohol.

“Well, _yes_. You're being difficult.” We sit down. I watch her drink whiskey from a shot glass. “His parents gave him up. He’s adopted.”

_“What?”_

Mikasa inhales a full lung of my cigarette smoke and starts explaining. “As far as I know—and I don't know anything—his biological dad was the son of—the son of a _gun_. I'm sorry, no, I'm from the West, annihilate me. He was the son of some wealthy businessman. The father is supposedly still big in the industry, I wish I'd listened to my dad more, I don't wanna lie. The guy, the father, he was in his twenties and had a spot ready under his own father’s name, you know, how it always is. He then started seeing a Russian model, which later became his girlfriend, which later became pregnant. When Levi was born, they got green card married so she could move here.”

“That sounds like a very plausible future of my own. That, and scripted.”

"Well, I didn't make it up, holy shit. You just have to trust me on this. They're both crack heads now. Levi doesn’t know. Maybe he does. Either way, don’t talk about it. His foster parents are my relatives. He’s fine, though. You’ll see what I mean—I think you might get along really well.”

"In what sense?"

"I think he's gay."

Oh, of course.

I start looking around out of instinct rather than sparked interest. “Where is he?”

“Somewhere at the bar. White t-shirt, dark hair.”

Surely, I have to peek around the corner of the booth.

The bar is also crafted out of wood. It's carved round on the edges and has a section for shot glasses. A few wine bottles are up there. Behind the counter, there's a wide selection of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. Neon curls in pale lines, emitting thick light.

There's just one person behind the counter. It's a boy. I haven't been to the bar in a while, but know he’s not from around. I’ve never seen him before. He’s sitting cross-legged on a bar stool, in jeans and dirty black sneakers. The white t-shirt is so big it doesn’t cling to him, only to his rounded shoulders, even though he is hunched over his own weight and currently on his phone.

“That’s him?” I ask, tilting my head.

“Yeah.” She nods. “I’ll go with you, my car keys are there. I think I might ask Jean to drive me home. I’ve reached the point where I find it physically unbearable to look at you. God, Eren, you’ve gotten _really_ handsome, did you know that? Your hair looks great long.”

My stomach feels like a flurry. “Thanks.”

“You were ugly when we were kids. Your nose was too big. I'm so glad you grew into it."

 _“Thanks._ Can we go? You should talk to Jean before he has another beer.”

With a, “God, I know,” she takes my hand and pulls me to my feet. I groggily get up and follow her to the bar. My mind feels like a beehive; in the sense that I now don’t really know what to think of whoever this guy is supposed to be. She said we might get along, so I take it he’s weird, slightly gay and likes root beer. That’s my only important friend qualification, because I really dig root beer.

Once we’re there, Mikasa knocks on the counter. “Hey.”

He looks up.

Oh, fuck—oh, _fuck_.

I lose any string of thought.

Almond-shaped, dark eyes, pillowy lips, thick, black, slightly wavy strands tucked behind the ears in the same manner Mikasa does it. With the hair parted messily, he looks like a lovesick harlot in a Tim Burton movie, and somewhat like Jack White. I’d guess he’s in his twenties; there are visible lines on his forehead.

I stare at this newcomer like I would’ve run out of things to stare at. There’s nothing outstanding about his face at the first glance, but I feel like people in Pennsylvania aren’t normally this ethereal; especially among our Mexican commune. His features are very foreign. I’ve lived here my whole life and all I ever saw were conservatives or people too obsessed with "being weird". Those are the people who shop at Spencer’s, buy tongue piercing vibrators and never pay _papá_ rent on time.

“I brought you my dearest friend,” Mikasa says, and her fingers sneak around my waist. I then feel her tap on the small of my back, and turn my head without taking my eyes off of him.

He stares, and I notice his eyes pick up every bit of interaction between Mikasa and I.

“Be nice.” She kisses me on the cheek and drifts to the other side of the bar.

Upon seeing me, Levi locks his phone and slides off the stool. In the process of doing so, he also stumbles closer to the counter and stretches out quite the confident hand.

“I’m Levi.” His voice is lower than I somehow already managed to expect.

Of course, I shake his hand. “Hey. My name’s Eren.”

“I know. Nice meeting you. It’s your birthday, right?” Levi points at the poster behind me. “Happy birthday. I didn’t get you anything, I'm sorry.”

I don’t know why I expected him to act weird. I don’t know why. I just thought being given up for adoption irreversibly traumatizes you, and he should've had some speech impairment issues or excessive sensitivity to sunlight, or some other mutant problem. To my disappointment and simultaneously joy, however, he has an accent.

“That’s fine, we just met. I didn't... Wow, I really need to get out more. How’d you end up here?” The smile I offer is supposed to be nice, but my knees are kind of bucking at this point, so the delivery might be botched. I take a drag from my cigarette. Why am I so—why am I so _agitated?_

He scratches his bicep and leans on his forearms. “I just moved. From Virginia. But I'm from St. Petersburg, if you know where that is.”

"That's Russia."

"Well, yeah."

“So you moved to the outskirts of Pennsylvania. Good choice!" I gesture. "Welcome to fucking nowhere.”

“You know what’s an even better choice?”

Unsure if he’ll comment on my awful looks or Rush t-shirt, I frown. “What is?”

He points at the jukebox.

I tear my gaze away from his pristine features and listen to what’s playing. It takes me a while to realize it’s You Can’t Hurry Love by Phil Collins; it strikes me Phil Collins might’ve been playing the whole fucking evening and I’d never have noticed.

“Oh my god,” I say.

He smiles. His teeth are small and straight. “You like Phil Collins?”

“Not really, no,” I lie. I don’t want to look like a prick. “Why?”

“I thought you might. The entirety of Face Value has been playing ever since I got here. I dropped some quarters in the box, but it spat them right back. Since it's your birthday, I figured this is a honorary thing.”

Then I rethink it, and realize I do like Phil Collins, a whole lot, and I’ve always been too ashamed to admit it to anyone besides Jean and Armin. Phil Collins is Jean's dirty heartbreak pleasure. Mine, too. The downslide of this might be admitting you like certain things because of how, being so procreative, they made you whole.

Point is, I like Phil Collins.

“You know what? Forget that. I do like him.”

“That’s relieving. Me too. I was mainly brought up on Phil Collins and Talking Heads. David Byrne to me is what Mikasa vows to her is River Phoenix.”

You ever just stare at someone in awe, soaking in how angelic they are?

“I love Talking Heads,” I dreamily say, probably sounding like an idiot who thinks Talking Heads is a multiplayer 1996 rendition of the Pac-Man game.

Levi’s eyes follow the burning tip of my cigarette. I flail it side to side. He looks a bit like those dumb cats chasing lasers on YouTube. I raise my hand a few inches above my head and hold it still; that’s where he finally looks back at me. We both laugh, but it’s not forced. Awfully flirtatious, maybe, but all in all, quite good. I remind myself flirting isn't what I should aim for around boys like Levi. That usually gets me nowhere. Then again, I've never met anyone like him.

“You want one?” I offer the pack. He nods and slowly pulls out not one, but two cigarettes, to which I surprisingly don’t react. Not audibly.

“For later,” Levi says.

“It’s alright.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

He inspects my face while chewing on his cigarette, I guess to see if it’s _really_ alright. We share a few seconds of eye contact, until I hand him my blue lighter, which then steals all his attention.

“Nice!” Levi exaggeratedly exclaims, fidgeting with the blue square in his hands. Once he gets to the back with a black, quite faded scribble, his brows lower. “What does this say?”

“Tourette’s tics me off.”

I watch his expression go from confused to amused. “Oh? That’s pretty funny. That’s actually really good. Is that an inside joke?”

“I have Tourette’s.”

“I see.”

The more we speak, the better I'm able to pick up the slight edge of his accent that's coming out.

I feel somewhat shaken, both by his looks and the fact that this is a cutout Manic Pixie Dream Boy scenario, so I conveniently recall having left my glass of root beer on the corner table and imagine _that_ might help clear my mind. I quickly finish off the cigarette stub I was left with and butt it out in an ashtray. Most of my friends know I don’t behave well around people I admire. You can’t just do this to me. You just—you don’t! Don’t do that!

“Stay right here, I’ll go get my drink,” I say, pointing a finger at him as I back off to the opposite side of the room.

He doesn’t seem too phased, but nods. His thumb continues to click my lighter.

My entire damn body twists around and I stalk over to Christa, who, at this point, seems out of it, life, everything.

“You alright?” I poke at her side and scoot in the seat beside her. One of the wooden supporting beams hides Levi from me when I look over my shoulder, and it’s not light enough to see the bar from here, so I feel safe for the time being.

She ties her elbow with mine. “I'm alright. Are you alright?”

I’m not. She knows. She’d know what I’m thinking by just looking me straight in the eye. I swallow dry and begin wrestling with myself; I have to choose to feel either bitterness for being interested in someone I just met, or absolute admiration. With my stomach forming a weird knot, I grab her beady glass of gin and tonic and chug a third of it.

When I put the glass down, I’m on the brink of tears because of how strong it is and how badly I have to burp.

“Well?”

I swallow the burp and look up. “The son of some Slavic model is sitting over there, with my blue lighter, smoking my blue Camel cigarette, and I don’t really know what to do.”

“What’s he like?”

“I don’t know. He has an accent. He seems... He's hot, Christa. You can clearly see he’s the son of a model. And he likes Talking Heads.” I take a deep breath. “I don’t like this.”

“Ask him if he’s coming to the afterparty,” Christa excitedly whispers, leaning in. “I want to see him.”

“Look around the corner, he’s right there.”

She does.

Christa’s face is about beaming when she turns back to me. “I see what you’re saying, _hermano.”_

My entire expression jerks. I want to squirm out of my pants. I want to squirm straight in bed and sleep for a week. I don’t usually feel this way. Meeting Jean was similar, but we grew up together, so I didn’t see anything special about him—other than the fact that he’s somehow managed to handle me for all these years.

With a sorrowful face and pursed lips, I head back to the bar where Levi is patiently waiting, though on the stool again, and cross-legged. I can't help but notice myself getting excited just to talk to him.

“My sister had a job interview today,” I start, pulling my own bar stool closer to where I was standing. “She doesn’t think she’ll make it.”

“There are probably other jobs out there. I don’t want to trick you into thinking she’ll make it.” His honesty is abrupt, unexpected, and very relatable. “She might. I’ve never even met her, oh my god.”

“She might.”

“Well, then she might. Can I ask you something?”

“Ask away.”

“Are those real?” Levi reaches out and taps on my glasses. It makes him look child-like with innocence.

I don’t lean back, even though I’m tempted to. He was quite close for a second. “Do I strike you as someone who’d wear fake glasses?”

“Yes. No. Actually, yeah. And don’t look at me like that.” Levi threatens me with an unlit cigarette when I’m supposedly looking at him “like that”. “All I’m saying is, they reflect a load of light. That’s how you spot the fake ones. I used to wear fakes with clear lenses that I thought would lend me some kind of diligent look."

"Did that ever work?"

"No. I looked like, uh. Harry Potter. Do you actually need glasses?

“Oh. Yeah. I normally wear contacts.” I lean on my elbow and press my knuckles into my cheek. “I got a pretty bad tic right before leaving the house, so I couldn’t get them in.”

He doesn’t say anything for a while. I nervously take a sip of root beer and pretend I’m interested in the movie on our left, which is now Labyrinth.

“So you have Tourette’s,” I hear him say. It sounds more like a conclusive statement than anything else, and I wonder why did this fact stick with him. “Is Tourette’s the one where your face goes funky?”

I look back at him mid-sip and lower the glass. “Kind of. I suffer a light case. Happens when I’m nervous, but it may as well happen any time of the day.”

“Do you ever _feel_ it happening?”

“Used to. Not anymore, really, unless someone points it out.”

Levi stares at me for a while until I notice his eyes flick up higher on my face. He grins and points his chin in my general direction. I lean to the side and check my reflection in the mirror behind the bar shelves.

Oh, come on.

Factually, I’d probably make an awful poker player. It _does_ suck. It makes me feel insecure, and I normally am not. This is why meeting new people is anxiety-inducing.

"Thanks," I say, but don't genuinely feel mad I'm being made fun of.

“Hey, funnyman, my forehead is huge.” Levi’s fingers slip between the front strands of his hair and he pulls it back, away from his face, revealing his forehead. “Get a load of this.”

“It looks normal to me.”

“It looks like a chalkboard. It’s the size of a _continent_. Also, I broke my collarbone when I was younger. It never healed. Interested?”

I nod.

Levi hooks his fingers at the hem of his t-shirt and pulls it down. It reveals the uneven collarbones and a portion of his excruciatingly white chest for someone who just moved here from Virginia; I consider Virginia hot. I notice a faded line of what I guess is a tattoo, towards his right shoulder.

“Is this supposed to make me feel better?” I gleefully ask, playing with the ice cubes in my glass. It _did_ make me feel better.

“I don’t know,” he says, letting go of the shirt. I watch him fix it and sit back straight. “Maybe I’m trying to tell you everyone's flawed, and if you don’t see it, you know it’s in the head, or some other romantic cult film nightmare.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I’m probably, like, crazy.”

"So you think you're cute?"

We chew our straws and look at each other. We both know one of us has to say it.

"Yeah," Levi strongly says.

“How old are you again?” I ask, with the very intention of bringing him home tonight.

“How old do you think I am?”

“Twenty.”

“Wow. I’m seventeen. My birthday's on Christmas.”

My stomach drops. “Oh my god, are you still in school?”

“I graduate this year.”

I sit there like a complete idiot, trying to remember what I was like two, three years ago. Surely, not like this. Not all that compelling and cool. I had long hair and a girlfriend six years older than me. She fetishized my entire existence, and I loved it.

I thought being with an older woman meant we’ll go to the Bahamas and have sex in a white hotel room, have a secret affair while her possibly gay husband is babysitting the kids and mowing her lawn. Most of it was true. I got stuck with a gambling, closeted lesbian fetish freak, but she was older than me, and that was what I needed at the moment. The part where she got off at seeing me in lingerie might’ve been optional, but I really liked her, so I agreed to everything. Bondage, dress-up, knife play (that's been stuck with me up to this day). Our relationship was eventful. I can’t say she ruined my adolescence. I can’t say she ruined anything, but I did cocoon up after the breakup, because I felt really used.

“Are you alright?” Levi leans in, his cigarette lit. “You seemed out for a second. I didn’t mean to disappoint you so much by being a teenager.”

“I just remembered myself at your age, that’s all.”

He considerately nods and drinks the remnants of _my_ root beer.

* * *

 Journal entry: 

_I’m so happy my handwriting looks sloppy, but here I damn am, the prince of motor tics, alive and well at my big 21! I haven’t had a birthday this good in years. It’s already the 31 st of March, but I wanted to open my presents as soon as everyone left, so I’m now sitting in front of the fireplace, it’s 7:54 AM, and I’m crying like a huge baby. Christa gave me the camera body I begged Hitch to lend me, and Jean gave me the lens. I’m tripping nuts over this. The full set is very, very expensive; Jean must’ve been saving up for months._

_All the wrapping paper is atmospherically crumbling in the fireplace. Christa is sleeping in Jean’s room. She’s drunk. We had tequila. I feel...content. This will pass, but for now, I’m letting myself feel thankful for all the people around me, and everyone who has ever cared._

_I met a very eccentric student._

_I like him a lot. I like him too much. But he’s a student. A senior, at least. He only lives here temporarily, and is also Mikasa’s cousin, and I’m frantically looking for other excuses not to be his friend. If I start shitting out all his good qualities, this journal will turn into an incoherent mess, so I’ll refrain from that, but he came over to our house along with around twenty other people and absolutely adored it. I think seeing the beauty in this house might also be a qualification to be my friend. I know Jean couldn’t shut up about it when we first moved in, and look at us now._

_He said we should hang out and gave me his number. On a piece of tissue from the bar. Do you know what this smells like? A movie. I’m too embarrassed to write a script of my own life, but yesterday felt like something I’d see in a film festival._ _I’ll write the number down here, in case I forget to do so after I wake up. (XXX-XXX-XXXX)._

_Levi left with a few of my friends. If he’d stayed the night, we would be smoking on the balcony and eating my cold tortillas, talking about life and drinking the rest of the tequila Christa and I couldn’t finish. I’d ask him if he wants to be in a film of mine, if I ever happen to shoot something bigger; he’s pretty good-looking. Christa seems to be very into him._

_I seem to be very into him._

_Room for fantasy is necessary, but it makes it hard to cope with the real thing. We’ll meet again sometime, I’m sure._

_It’s 8:28 AM. I feel like I’ve done enough and should crash._ _Goodnight, journal, and goodnight, twenty-one-year-old Eren Jaeger._


	2. Milk-fed (Second Circle)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Gazastrippin](https://gazastrippin.tumblr.com) on Tumblr.
> 
> [Playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/hentaivert/playlist/2rND5iE0iUjELcUuuIYn1o) here.

Journal entry:

_Jean’s birthday follows a week after mine. It’s hard to forget a birthday if it’s around the time yours is. There’s some superiority complex in it, probably, but I’ve yet to figure that out._

_On this Thursday, 7 th of April, I made sure I woke before five. _

_Jean wakes up early. He tends to say it takes more time for him to get ready for the day. Retail isn’t child’s play, he claims. We’ve made our oath of letting sleep stay sacred, but Jean is loud. (Doing anything, really. Sex is one of the reasons I stay at my sister’s so much.) Over these two years of cohabitation, I’ve somewhat managed to notice the hour he leaves the house._

_On nights when I suffer from incurable sleeplessness and constant worry about very existential things, I don’t feel time pass. The house is so large and so acoustically balanced that I’m able to hear Jean from the moment he gets out of his room to when he gets out of the house, which is, symbolically, the jingle of his car keys and an eerie, loneliness-inducing click of the door. Of course, accompanied by the endless creaking, because I find something endearing about creaking doors in this house._

_I only woke this early to drive down to Sheetz and get him coffee and a pack of Lucky Strikes. I was never a fan of Luckies. I’d gotten a large slice of chocolate cake the previous night on my way home from work, so the only other thing I had to commit to was sticking a big candle through the cake’s hardened chocolate topping. At some point during the process I wondered if he noticed the cake while it was in the refrigerator. Probably not. He’d have eaten it if he did._

_Jean came downstairs before 5:30. I was patiently sitting in front of the slice and a steaming plastic cup of hazelnut coffee. It looked like he’d finally gotten good sleep that night. His hair was all tousled, and he had his Orioles t-shirt on the wrong way. I noticed the green wool socks mamá found while cleaning storage units. She gave them to me, but I gave them to Jean. I think he’s grown to sleep with these._

_I felt so content seeing Jean this delighted, once he realized what’s going on. He was cheesing so hard. While he ate the cake, I took two pictures of him with the Polaroid camera we share. It’s running out of film. (I’ll buy some before going to his editing class tonight.)_

_One of the pictures is staying with me. In it, Jean’s sitting cross-legged, with a plate of that large chocolate chunk in one hand, and a cigarette in the other. Birthdays are the only days smoking in the house is fine._

_The rest of Jean’s morning went as it usually does. Once he left, I smoked, ate a toasted blueberry bagel with cream cheese, and went back to bed to catch up on sleep. I was restless and tossed myself around for an hour before getting up._

_Now I’m writing this with a hurting stomach and shaky hands. That blueberry bagel wasn’t too good. I should start the fireplace. You’d think it should be warmer a week into April, but the snow hasn’t even budged. It’s hard to motivate yourself to go out for a cigarette. It’s even harder to resist the urge to smoke in the house. Now that I come to think of it, winters are probably good for quitting._

_I don’t know what we’re doing tonight. It’s too cold for a hike and I have to submit my project tomorrow. I don’t like going out anymore. Jean does—but he always has. I assume he’ll stay at Mikasa’s and call off work tomorrow if we go to Blue Salem._

_On another note, I haven’t seen Levi since Monday. Haven’t heard of him, either. He’s starting to remind me of a hallucination, a projection of something I subconsciously wish for. People around me almost act like he never existed. Like he’d be a blurry memory of something that once was._

_I do think he might be busy with schoolwork and getting to know the area. Moving in, meeting new people, establishing connections. I can imagine that._

_I’ll text him tonight._

The only other thing I wrote in the journal, a couple hours later, was: 

_I found Levi on Facebook. I don’t think I’ve ever spent this much time on someone’s Facebook page._

* * *

On my way to Jean’s editing class, I stopped at Best Buy and asked about the film. They weren’t holding any compatible with our camera model, so I had to run all the way across the mall to Sam’s Club and get it there. Up to this point, I still wonder how I didn’t get hit by a Venza.

I arrived long before the class started. Because of the cold, my muscles were so tense I had my coat in a chokehold when I entered the building. The walk from the parking lot to Jean’s school takes about two minutes, but even that is enough.

The classroom is warm. All the heaters are plugged in and running, and the normally open blinds are shut. I notice a few people from the class outside in the hallway; we wave at each other. Jean gets out of work at six, so I’m here without him for at least twenty more minutes.

I know Hitch is here. I saw her fur coat. Texan lollipop can’t get used to this kind of weather and probably never will. Nobody knows why she moved to god-forsaken Maryland. People move here because drugs are cheap in Hagerstown and we predominantly live off of Goodwill.

Armin was seeing Hitch at some point, or still is, I’m not sure. I used to think her monotonous valley voice was sexy, but grew tired of it after the fifth editing class together. Hitch has nice thighs, which she, as a former track runner, is more than certainly aware of. She possesses lots of talents, and her parents run a big rental business. It’s useful for _papá_ and his storages. We have to get along.

Small town often romanticized perk and very large downfall is everyone knowing everyone.

My howling stomach reminds me there’s a vending machine on the first floor. I head downstairs only to remember I left my wallet in the classroom, and when I get back to the classroom, I realize it’s in the car. My perpetual frown doesn’t stop being perpetual.

In the end I just give up on feeding myself and hope someone would bring something edible to class. I text Armin asking if he would, and he says he’ll get us a foot long teriyaki sub. He works at Subway. He’s just eighteen.

To kill the dull following minutes I turn on the radio. What’s playing is Dream Awhile from the album It Happened in Monterey. I know this because this is the only radio station I ever listen to. Things kind of loop after a while. But I also really like Mel Torme & the Mel-Tones. _Papá_ used to like them, is why.

This song makes me think of a younger me. Just like Buddy Orange by Vincent Cyr. I selflessly remember the cat I lost to a storm years ago. He was an orange tabby, and ate a lot. He was my favorite of all.

Jean made me promise I wouldn’t buy him a present. His secure excuse was that my car’s fucked now, because of him, but my excuse was the camera lens he bought—a completely unsanctioned purchase.

I like to think the cake this morning was symbolic.

Food.

Birthday food.

The thing about a storage business and your best friend’s parents running one is free shit. Constant supply of free shit. Of course, most of it being garbage, but if something happens to be slappin’ new, or if you find some 1992 t-shirts just so very your style, you can always wash and keep them. So I do admit it, there’s nothing I could give him he actually needs—besides time. But I can’t give him any time. So I got him gift cards.

I almost suffer from a stroke when some girl outside the classroom screams “Happy birthday!” and several more phrases like that follow right after. A loud pop can be heard, and I recognize Jean’s laughter. I turn the radio down and tilt back on my chair, careful not to tip over.

My beaming best friend enters the room out of breath, scarf and hair askew, smiling and being loud, and I somehow put it together he was let off early. His navy blue t-shirt is covered in yellow glitter; it’s all over his face and hair, too.

“I was let off early,” he says. “Today is such a good _fucking_ day!”

“You look like our vacuum cleaner after Christmas, _mi vida,”_ I manage to grunt.

He lifts his phone to look at his reflection. At least a spoonful of glitter falls off at the motion. I watch it twirl and land on his shoes. And the floor. And my shoes.

“The sun itself,” Jean says and ruffles his hair. “Wow, look at that shit go. Sequin prince. Glitter prince. I look beautiful.”

“Sequin prince,” I eerily repeat. “I’ve had a sister for long enough to know we’ll have glitter in our food now.”

“Well—I’m not rubbing off on you, am I?”

“We share the washing machine and dryer. It’s contagious. It’s like herpes.”

After I say that, he doesn’t put the USB plug for his mouse in right after five attempts.

As Jean sets up his computer, he goes on telling me about things that happened today. I listen to him talk for the longest time before I realize he never talks this much. He retells boring fragments of things his customers have said. He feels flimsy to me; like he’s avoiding stepping on a bunch of very sharp glass shards.

“Jean,” I interrupt.

He looks up at me. The way his puppy eyebrows are knotting in the middle, he either burned a hole in the living room carpet, clogged the bathroom or has something groundbreaking to say. Like, “I’m dating Mikasa.” 

Or, “Eren, I broke my leg and you have to come pick me up. I’m in North Carolina, by the way, that good?”

I sit on one of the tables and swing my legs to the music on the radio as I slowly process his weird fidgeting. Jean is shining like a streetlight, but it feels like the light in him is dimming.

“Jean! Happy birthday!” I say, out of the blue, to avoid sounding weird. “This is your last teenage year. Twenty comes next.”

“You’re the best person I know,” he absentmindedly responds.

I look outside the window. Dream Awhile changes to Heroes by Bowie, and Jean mentions how much he likes this song. He also asks me what time it is four times in a row. Consider me concerned.

“Is something wrong?” I ask.

“Yeah. Yeah. We really need to talk after the class is over.”

“We’ve got plenty of time still. You can talk to me.” My own voice feels distant. I sound cold and urging. I want to apologize for always being the way I am, but even that would sound weird.

Jean doesn’t budge. I slide off the table and walk over. Flipping one of the office chairs so my chest presses against the back of it (like cops do in movies), I roll closer to him, the miniscule wheels whirring, and land one of my dazzling investigator stares.

“My dad is going through his third divorce,” he says in a voice that sounds like steamy, hot air held in a balloon for too long. “This wife has half his savings and wants to take the house. He got hooked on marijuana. She’s twenty. He’s forty-eight.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. I didn’t know how old she was up until my lunch break today.”

“Did he not, for a split second, consider she’s only in it for the money?”

Jean gives me a hard stare and I completely understand why. “She was a prostitute. Then, a volunteer at AA, that’s all I know.” He sighs. I also empathetically sigh. “Dad talked some about her wanting to be a caretaker. _Of_ _course_ she’d want to be a caretaker. How could she not?”

We sit silent for a brief while. Some people come to the classroom and settle in distant corners after wishing Jean a happy birthday and shaking my hand.

“I can’t believe his third wife is my age,” I finally say. “He’s really hit a new low.”

“This all started when my mom fucked him over. Mom fucked him over so bad, man. And now it’s almost like a curse. You should’ve seen the women he dated while I stayed with him.”

“I think it runs in the family, _mi vida.”_

“Eren, shut up.”

“I mean—what does _this_ mean to you? Does he want to move back to Pennsylvania? He can live with us, if he wants to. He can have the guest room.”

“I don’t think he wants to move in with us.”

“Well—Cedarbrook? It’s really no problem. My dad can lend a unit for free.”

“Eren…” He begins, and tenses in his seat. “Look. Listen.”

And there it is, folks. Everything I’ve ever worried about now leads to a culmination. “I’m moving back to Ohio.”

I sit still, heart tripping over a hurdle, missing a few beats.

“Ohio?” I silently ask.

“He wants me to move in with him, Eren, and I don’t know how to fix this. I don't know what else to do, I’ve never seen a man this broken. It’s—he’s my dad, Eren. I can't just let him rot away like that.” At this point Jean lets himself sink down on his forearms. I hear his voice shaking within the next few words. “I haven’t told Mikasa yet. She’s downstairs. Levi’s here, too.”

I perk up. “The cousin?”

“Yeah,” Jean says, sitting up straight. “He didn’t want to come until I said you come here. I haven't been getting along with Mikasa all that well lately, either, and saying I have to move sounds like I'm just making shit up. Eren, _I don’t know what to do._ I’d never been this happy before, as I am with her, even if I'm working my shit job and coping with school all at once, unable to pull ends together to afford my own place to live in. I felt happy for once. Now everyone wants to dissect my happiness and take it away.”

Jean looks like he's about to cry. It tears me apart knowing this should've been his prime of the year.

I lower my brows in a comforting manner and put my hand on his shoulder. “When are you leaving? You need to talk to her. Soon. I mean, today’s a good day, it’s your birthday. You need to mention it at some point.”

“Eren, I don’t want to break her heart,” he says.

“You’re breaking _my_ heart being this sad.”

“I know. I leave this weekend. Will you help me pack? I also need a ride to the airport.”

I shrug. “Sure. Will you drink with me beforehand?”

“Undoubtedly.”

We don’t talk much after that.

Eventually I roll back to my original position and open my laptop. I sit on the window side of the classroom. The sun is exceptionally nice in late spring and summer; during winter it just doesn’t fucking exist. There’s a heater right at my feet and I happily wiggle my toes in my thrifted leather combats.

I don’t know what to do now. I got so excited over the idea of being alone in that huge, creamy white house, but it currently scares me more than anything. Jean left me for Ohio once and he’s leaving me again. I understand his reasoning, but I wish he didn’t have to go. Now, come to think of it, the previous time was also a divorce, the second one. I’m almost sure of this. Jean never gave any reasoning to that last visit. Maybe I should’ve given him plane tickets for his birthday.

I’ve forgotten how to be alone. I’m afraid I won’t be able to find comfort in it. I used to romanticize my loneliness, and I don’t know how to do that anymore.

I hear Jean call Mikasa and ask her if she’s planning on coming to the classroom. After he drops the call, he turns to me and says Levi is trying to force a Twix bar out of the vending machine on the first floor.

“I’ll go help,” I say, far too eagerly.

I check the condition of my hair in glass door reflections on my way downstairs.

Levi doesn’t strike me as someone who’d get caught up on a vending machine, but he’s there when I slide down the rail of the final staircase, pressing all possible buttons simultaneously, his foot jammed in the take-out port. I land with a sharp squeak. He looks at me. Mikasa is nowhere to be seen.

“Hey!” Levi smiles, Twix long forgotten, as he leans forward and high fives me.

I feel eternally relieved he actually exists, this magazine cutout teenage boy, and hasn’t been just a vivid hallucination of mine, so I smile back. “Hi.”

“This has never happened to me before,” he says. Levi’s black Vans-clad foot wriggles around the free space of the port until he gets it out and stands straight in front of me. “Hi, again.”

I try to ignore the thick cologne and look past his shoulder. The large Twix bar really is stuck—it’s completely cramped in the spiral. I sigh. “It usually helps if you kick the side.”

Levi walks around me and kneels at the vending machine to inspect it, like there’s a whole lot to inspect. It’s just a shitty piece of technology created to milk money from every tenth customer who wants that fucking Capri Sun or bag of apple chips.

“The dents all over it kind of give it away, don’t they?” I silently ask.

Levi grins and gets back up. His knees don’t crack, unlike everyone else’s, and I’m very impressed by this.

He actually kicks the vending machine. It gives a loud, reverbing thud throughout the entire corridor. I worriedly look over my shoulder for any late night tutors, but it’s as empty as it was when I arrived. The Twix looks the same, really. He did manage to move a Gatorade bottle and that forever stuck Bounty on the left looks just about ready to fall.

I clap. “Oh my god. You almost kicked it over.”

“You try,” Levi says. “You’re probably stronger than I am.”

I say something incoherent about skipping P.E. and grab the sides of the vending machine. Pressing my left heel sideways against the skirting board, I slowly tilt it off the wall. What falls within the following few seconds is probably a week’s worth of snacks.

Levi excitedly gasps. I find it really cute. 

“Alright, there goes the Twix,” he then says.

“Good,” I wheeze and let it fall back on all fours. As I clench and unclench my fists, I realize this might’ve been the worst macho highlight of my life.

He kneels down again to collect the loot.

“Are you signing up for the class?” I ask to fill the silence. “Editing class, I mean.”

“I might. I really just came to hang out with you.”

 _My heart._ I don’t know what to respond to this, so I shake my head. Like old people. Or insecure people. I’m very likely both. But what he said was nice, and this is definitely conscious flirting at this point. Furthermore, his accent is as noticeable as ever. I’m beginning to feel upset at myself for having no pre-set standards or preferences whatsoever. Right now you could read them off my forehead.

My forehead blatantly states I’m into a seventeen-year-old.

Levi sticks the Gatorade bottle and two packs of pretzels in my hands as we start heading to class. He’s wearing a white shirt again. I’ve only seen him wear white so far. Pedant.

I bet he never eats fries with ketchup.

I smile to myself.

“What?” Levi suddenly asks, nudging my arm. I didn't notice he was looking at me. “What is it?”

“Nothing. Nothing. No, actually—I've been meaning to ask if you're Russian or not.”

“Belarusian. Mikasa said my accent is softer now.”

“Your English is really good, I’m amazed. I’ve been thinking about this a lot.” I say this with a straight face, but I’m holding back so hard. Everything about him is _good_. He’s universally fucking desirable.

 _God,_ I think, glancing downwards, _e_ _ven the ass._

My head whips up at the final staircase, and we walk down the corridor. The classroom is at the very end of it. The wrapping papers of the snacks in his hands are making soft sounds. His shoes are squeaking, but so are mine.

School corridors are so eerie at night.

“I was listening to Slint before we came,” he silently says. “Do you like Slint?”

 _Date me,_ I think. I saw Slint in Los Angeles, 22 nd of August, 2014. “I love Slint. Spiderland is a masterpiece.” Then I sigh. "Goodnight, my love, remember me as you fall to sleep."

"Fill your pockets with the dust and the memories that rise from the shoes on my feet," Levi voluntarily finishes the opening lines of Washer. “We should talk about music sometime.”

“I was thinking the same thing. Do you—do you go to school already?” I feel like this sounded irreversibly more stupid than I intended it to and made me feel older than the Earth itself.

Levi shakes his head. “I start next week.”

“Where at?”

He stammers. “I still can’t remember the name. Somewhere downtown.”

“Maybe it’s my old school.”

“That would be really cool. Hey—do they really have a vinyl player here? Mikasa said they do. I took some of my favorite records.” He pats his backpack. "Slint included."

“There’s a subpar player upstairs, but I have one at home.”

“I could come over this weekend.”

My eyebrows shoot up.

“You _could_.” My voice contains not just a glimmer, a fat _chunk_ of hope. “Do you drive?”

“No. I mean, yes. I have a permit. I don’t have a car.”

“Well, do you…want me to pick you up?” I offer, dragging each word out. “I can do that. Do you live with Mikasa?”

“I live in the dorms by her house.”

“Wow. That must suck. I’m sorry. I'm so sorry.” I pause. I’m surprised they put him in the dorms. Everyone in town knows they’re worse than a crack house. “Are you free tonight? If Jean doesn’t want to go out, you should come.” I’m fully aware I just completely disregarded my deadline, but that’s fine.

We stop right before the classroom, which gives this a somewhat intimate feel. This is the indie romantic short film dark corridor scene with a purposefully contrasted shot. In it, you witness a kiss in such high resolution it’s borderline disgusting. I wonder if his thoughts ever wander this way, but quickly remember he likely has no idea I’m interested in him. I’m the Pennsylvania cryptid, the entity capable of making you feel like I don’t like you. Maybe it’s just my face.

“That sounds so good, yeah,” Levi says.

“So it’s set.”

We stand before the class in silence. Voices of people I know can be heard through the open door, but I catch myself looking at Levi, and Levi only.

He’s so…dreamy. Self-aware. He is so very undoubtedly self-aware. He’s looking back up at me, leaning against the wall, fingers pinching a golden button, the size of a cherry, on the sleeve of his shirt.

“If class gets boring, let me know. I’ll show you where the library is," I offer. "The record player is right there. It should be fun, though. Whenever it’s someone’s birthday, no one gets any work done.”

“I see.” My sister says that. My sister says that! She’s prone to saying this particular phrase. “Thanks.”

His distant, large blackcurrant eyes take all of my face in. Time stops, becomes tangible. I could avoid sleep for eleven days without any physical strain. I feel like I’m not making things up when I say he might be into me—that this might be mutual.

My shallow interest is growing into unbearable attraction.

Someone shouts my name from the other side of the corridor. I hear hardwood knock-like footsteps, and they cause me to look away—though unwillingly. Stepping back to look at the newcomer, it dawns on me I was standing far too close to Levi—for my standards, at least. The one marching down the hallway is Armin, a paper Subway bag in one hand, and his phone in the other; I notice the earphones plugged in his phone are dragging along on the ground.

I wave at him and look over at Levi. “Have you met Armin yet?”

“Is he the one Jean says is an alcoholic?”

I take a deep breath. “Make sure you never listen to what Jean says. Wait here.”

I head towards Armin. We shake hands and he hands me the bag. I instantly smell the baby wipe coconut aroma, but have gotten so used to it it’s almost a homely smell. It mixes well with the teriyaki sub in the bag.

“You owe me two thirty and some cigarettes,” he says as we slowly walk back to where Levi’s standing. “My lips are so fucking chapped, god.”

“Ask Hitch for lip balm,” I offer, grinning. “How was school?”

He pretends to retch. “Terrible. You must love being out.”

“Finals?”

“Yeah. Who is that?”

“Levi, Mikasa’s cousin.” I feel like we’re still far enough from the teenage deity, so I lean in closer to Armin and whisper, “For personal insight, I’ve never wanted to fuck anyone this bad.”

“They look too alike.” Armin quietly observes him. “Those are women’s jeans. How old is he?”

I bite my tongue. “Seventeen. Don’t say anything.”

“I wasn’t going to. I have to now.” Armin’s voice lowers by every word. “You should fuck.”

We _should_. I don’t respond to that, however, so we make our way to Levi in silence. He’s buried in his phone up until the last second.

“Hey,” Armin goes first, stretching a hand. Levi locks his phone and they shake hands. “I’m Armin.”

“I’ve heard of you,” Levi takes back. “I’m Levi.”

Armin looks puzzled. I figure it’s because Mikasa doesn’t have an accent of any kind, but Levi does. 

“Belarus,” I knowingly say, sounding more like a smartass than anything. 

We stand there in comfortable silence until Levi subtly compliments Armin’s bleached hair and Armin gets too excited for coherent speaking.

“What did you get for Jean?” Armin then asks.

“Gift cards. You?”

He smiles. “Gift cards.”

I didn’t expect Levi would’ve gotten him anything, like he didn’t get me anything, but I guess I was a mistake he learned from. Upon our ignited conversation, he zips his backpack open and pulls out a wrapped vinyl. “Mikasa said he doesn’t have this,” Levi says, shrinking in size under our agape stares. “It’s Souvlaki. By Slowdive.”

“This record is so fucking good,” Armin then exclaims, and I nod.

Levi notices I nodded and smiles.

We enter the classroom together. My hands are full of shit, so I head straight to my table and dump it all. I put Jean’s envelope on the present table when I arrived; now I just sit back and watch Armin and Levi put theirs down. I watch Levi, mostly. He appears to be shedding his shyness as days pass.

Mikasa isn’t here still. Jean seems confused.

Tutors for this class change. We teach ourselves—most of us here have a grade in this, that, or something similar. It’s a really recreational class, exclusive to everyone in it. Today the tutor is some skinny girl, originally from Philadelphia. I see her a lot on my way to work. I actually think she works right next to the theatre.

The projector is already running. The corner of a presentation slide falls on Hitch. Her hair is curled and she’s wearing a pink dress. The straps of it are thin and frilly, and stretch tightly over her collarbones. Jean’s yellow glitter is on her bare right arm; she must’ve hugged him. It stands out nicely in contrast with the full sleeve she has.

“Can you believe we used to go out?” Armin asks as he swims up next to me. “I can’t.”

I reach back and grab the Subway bag. To avoid nuisance, I give Armin his half still in the bag and keep mine wrapped in tissues. I also give him five Camel cigarettes that he sticks in his pack of Caines. 

“I kind of can.” I then bite into the sandwich and my speech becomes muffled. “I like you two together. I like her. Band-Aids, cigarettes, bruises, all that. Like Lil B said.”

“What did Lil B say?”

“Want me a goth bitch.”

“Where _is_ your goth bitch, Eren?”

I vaguely point at Levi and Armin chokes on his half of the teriyaki sub. I'm going to go hotbox a 2001 Subaru Outback Sedan and cry to Mineral.

The girl from Philadelphia isn’t hiding how pissed she is. She wants to get over with that presentation on Photoshop values, but Jean is a big deal. Jean has always been a big deal. _Muy importante._

Armin later stalks across the room to take his seat. Jean takes the table next to me. Levi gets seated right next to Marco, one seat away from us. The class crassly, lazily sets off. Sinking in the monotonous voice of our tutor for the night, I space out and think about the voluptuous black models I saw in an ad on my way to class. The radio next to me is still on. I don’t pay much attention to it until Jean nudges my arm, his eyebrows tense and eyes glued on the chirping vintage box.

“What is it?" I ask, watching Levi. He's playing with a ring on his index finger.

“Isn’t that the second one this week?”

This silenced question right at my ear makes me look away from Levi, who is now whispering something to Marco. “The second what?”

“The second fire.”

“What fire?”

“Look, if you don’t watch the TV, let me sell it and buy myself a fur coat. They just mentioned it on the radio.”

I turn fully to him. “I’ve been working, I’m sorry. What fire?”

“Alright, so—remember Kelly? The lady who owned the old goat barn uphill.”

“Yeah, the redhead? Yeah.” I think for a bit. “I remember she had a large unit and stopped responding to our calls. She also ignored the penalty and didn’t pay for her unit. We had to move everything out. I think she moved to Arizona.”

“Arizona, huh?”

I shrug. "I found letters from and to jail that said so.”

“Yeah, she’s… She’s dead, Eren. Kelly died, like, last year.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Okay. That’s fine, I didn’t either. That’s not the issue, I'm just setting the scene. That old goat barn burned to the ground on the night of your birthday. And they just said something about those old sheds near the woods.”

I raise my eyebrows in question.

“Mikasa's dad,” Jean explains, looking up at the ceiling. “They decided to make this public. God, Greencastle is so small. I get to hear about this in macabre detail. I’m going to love being away.”

Of course, the sheriff. Joseph Ackerman. I wonder if the Ackerman senior gave Jean any shit for the gun shells, if they found any in the ashes—if they even looked for anything in a burnt barn. We used it as a shooting range when we were both younger. _Papá_ tossed a 1903 Springfield rifle when cleaning a storage unit and deemed it as crap. Since I was so passionate about guns at that time, I took it to a pawn shop. The owner offered an exchange. That, for an AWC Ultra II.

“Symbolism. My gruesome entrance into this universe had a butterfly effect and it’s making an appearance twenty years later.”

“That really sounds like a shitpost.”

“My life is a shitpost.”

A good fifteen minutes of the class pass. I manage to shake off what Jean told me and switch my attention to Levi again.

Would he consider going out with me? Ever?

As if he’d heard the initial question, Levi looks over his shoulder, cheek pressed against it. His gaze wanders all across the classroom before he actually looks back at me. We make eye contact for a brief while. It’s hard to descry what he’s thinking of—I can’t see his mouth, but he looks happy.

My pocket vibrates. I don’t stop looking at him until I’ve pulled my phone out.

I look over at him again. He’s poking his laptop screen in a bored manner.

My problem with showing him where the library is is that I’ll lose my only object of interest in this class.

I nod at him. We get up almost simultaneously. All of his food that I previously carried is stuffed in my backpack, which I sling over my shoulder, and I only take my journal and sandwich to look like I’ll have something else to do rather than meaninglessly stare (which I, without any doubt, will be doing anyway).

Jean looks at me all hamster. I guess it’s because Mikasa is still not in class. I don’t think she will be.

“Library,” I whisper to Jean as I pass his table. And once Levi and I are back together in the dark corridor, all alone, gravity almost shifts.

“I don’t even go here,” I mention. “I’m not signed up for this class. It’s just that most people here are my friends.”

“So this is the only time you meet?”

“Exactly. I get it, though. Tonight is a theory class. Photoshop values are boring.”

Our checkpoint is the third floor. I finish my sandwich in silence as we walk up the stairs. The doors to the library are heavier than the vending machine, and the rooms smell funny, but god, is the library beautiful. The overstuffed chairs, the curtains, the rice-carved couches, the highboys and bath fixtures, all evoke a sense of that decorous, long-past era. This is the only truly authentic room in this school, with some sense of hospitality. It's generally quiet, free of loud music and conversation common to regular coffee shop haunts of the ordinary writer.

We spend the rest of the class listening to his records and talking. I fill my journal with miniscule descriptions of his appearance and even attempt a little sketch when he’s lying on the flower-print couch, almost angel like. I study the sharp angle of his jaw, his shoulders, the way he's slouched low on the sofa with both feet planted on the floor, as I would study any other person in public; a cultivated "writer's" habit to observe people like characters to be replicated for my work. I write down things he says, things he likes, and even find myself noting imperfections in his speech. _(Words Levi pronounces funny: aunt, route, wash, theater, iron, salmon, caramel, water, fire. I made him repeat “caramel” four times. He puts the emphasis on everything I don’t. I find it so fascinating.)_ Levi dips in on how savory junk food tastes, how beautiful and meaningful music is to him, and how indescribably lost Pennsylvania makes him feel. He says he feels small here. He’s so far away from home, he says, and so lonely.

Levi mentions he hates the dorms several times. I take notice of that.

Jean calls me later to let me know the class is over. I inform Levi and we pack our bags. I should make sure he doesn’t see the journal.

Walking up and down the stairs makes me feel like I’m in high school again. Levi probably doesn’t feel any significant change, but I do. I feel too old to aimlessly walk around and look at various graduation pictures and trophies, dragging myself from class to class. Back in the warm room, everyone’s sitting and talking to each other, like we always do, like we always did when we were classmates. Jean is the center of attention tonight, eating his gifted chocolate-dipped fried bananas in absolute peace with the universe.

Nineteen. He’s nineteen now. Was that me just two years ago?

I settle in my usual seat again. Levi sits on my table this time. I carefully let my eyes wander over the stitching of his jeans that runs all along his left leg. It doesn’t help that the white shirt he has on is hunching on the side, and I see a wide portion of his stupid Calvin Klein waistband. Of course he’d wear Calvins. He probably wears Levi’s, too.

“This just in, guys!” Hitch interrupts my active imagination, walking across the room with a bloc note. “Film festival in New York City. August somethin’. Eren, I signed you up. You just gotta call ‘em in about a week or two.”

“Is there a theme?” I ask, feeling Levi shimmy to a more comfortable position; his thigh touches my forearm. “A format?”

“Lemme see.” She flips the page. “Oh. Documentaries. Open topic. The time limit is a quarter to an hour. Nothin’ else, really. Y’all need anything, it’s in here. I put a dollar down Eren’s landing first.”

Some people surround Hitch and her bloc note, and Levi’s gaze is burning through my skull.

“I make movies,” I silently explain, indirectly looking at him. “Write the scripts myself, do all the camerawork. I went to school for that.”

“You never told me,” he whispers back. “That’s amazing.”

“I’ve won a few competitions.”

“Can I see your movies?”

I suddenly feel shy. I’ve never felt shy about my artwork. In front of this adolescent critic, however, my movies seem to be only surface-level entertaining or aesthetically pleasing.

“Sure,” I say. “Do you do anything like that?”

“Filmmaking?”

“Yes.”

“No. I write sometimes.” He briefly pauses. “Stories. Poetry. But I don’t like sharing any of it. I have that cool belief I’ll get known after I die, so I keep all of it archived and hidden.”

I pout. God bless me, the boy who owns several books by Alan Flusser and obsesses over grenadine silk, for I had committed the cardinal sin of pouting.

“Okay.” He then turns to me fully, pushing my forearm off the table with his knee. It falls on my lap. His eyes glisten; I like to think he saw how I fixed my belt. “I’ll read you my poetry and be romantic and freeing. You’ll have to listen to it and tell me what you think.”

“Okay.That works.”

Levi swallows what he was about to say and raises his hand for a high-five. “Cool.”

When I drove us to my house, we listened to Slint and ate _mamá's_ chili. I spent most of my time pulling ends together on the project while Levi explored the residence.

The fact that Tool isn’t on Spotify really grinds my gears. I wanted to listen to H. and 46 & 2.

Jean drove to Blue Salem right after class, so the house was left to us and only us. Levi’s silent footsteps above me let me know where he is. Right now, he’s in my room. It’s been a while since I’ve had a guest. My room is always the center of attention—it’s full of equipment and I hand painted the walls black so I could write on them with chalk.

“Your room is nice, but I like the yellow room better,” he says when I walk upstairs to check on him. “The sunroom. I lived in our sunroom back home.”

“You did?”

“Yes.” Levi sits on my old twin bed. “My mom called it the yellow room. _Zholtij.”_

 _“Zholtij,”_ I repeat, to taste the word on my tongue.

_“Zholtaja komnata.”_

_“Zholtaja komnata_. Yellow room?”

“Yeah.”

I fall in a deep state of thought upon realizing he’s talking about his biological mother. This is when I start watching where I put my foot, since I, quote unquote, don't know he's adopted.

“Do you—do you miss your family? How does it feel to be so far away? I mean, not that Virginia's far, but it's a drive.” I immediately regret asking this, but his attitude remains the same.

“I miss them. I miss my dad a lot, but mom the most. I was a… What do you call it? You know what I'm talking about.”

“A momma’s boy,” I guess.

“Yeah, a momma's boy. She taught me probably everything I know about life.”

Knowing all well he doesn’t mean his adoptive parents, I instinctively want to comfort this kid. I don’t think he knows Mikasa told me, so I refrain from it and instead talk about myself. 

“I miss my dad, too,” I say. “My _papá_. He lives ten minutes away, but I miss him. And I miss being young. Being effortless, skimmed of worry. You’ve still got that, at least. It’s a fragile thing, _muy valiosa_ , infinitely chased after all around the world.”

“You’re not old. And you worded that in a beautiful way.”

“I’m older than you. God, seventeen.” I lean against the doorframe. “Not knowing anything was beautiful. I used to think high school was a nightmare, but conscious aging is way worse.”

“Is it?”

“Look at me,” I jokingly say.

Levi looks over his round shoulder. I’ve grown to love this stare he always gives; a flirty glance, hinting to some unspoken tension as he avoids turning fully towards me, mouth covered, cheek pressed tightly against his cotton shirt. It gives him a soft look, framed with innocence. The baby hairs on his forehead fall in silky waves; small stray hairs peak from his middle part. Left side bangs tucked behind his ear, they reveal his jawline—it’s breaching adolescence along with him, becoming sharper, stronger.

I stand still at the door, completely and utterly lost. I can’t believe how deeply this affection has rooted. It’s beginning to impact my rationale, because I can’t seem to remember the punch line I was initially going for.

“I’m going out for a cigarette,” I breathlessly say and step out of the room. The cigarettes are in the pocket of my coat, so I have to head to the kitchen.

“Eren?” He calls from behind me.

I stop before the stairs. “Yes?”

“I’m adopted.”

I allow the silence to creep in long enough to make it seem like I’m shocked upon this new revelation. Partly, I really am shocked. He said it like that, plain. For someone to directly come out as adopted, I’d say it takes guts. But I wouldn’t know. I never had to. I never will.

“How old were you?”

“Twelve.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Maybe next week.” The mattress creaks as Levi gets up. I’m still right before the stairs when he walks out the room. “Bum me one.”

* * *

Journal entry: 

_They’re removing the swing-sets from the schoolyard, the park, the house I grew in, the one I grew tall in. Spring is very steadily approaching. Snow starts to retrieve every trace of itself._

_I have become more appreciative of my parents. Being aware that Levi’s adopted, now more than ever, has caused me to wonder what it’s like—to be raised by someone else. Someone who so wistfully wants a child but isn’t capable of having one. Would they pay more attention, be more loving?_

_I guess some adopted kids focus on the loss of their parents, on the feeling of being discarded. Others focus on being special. They know they were chosen out of all the possible children. And Levi wasn’t a cute little newborn anymore, at the age of twelve. His adoptive parents made a conscious decision to adopt him. That makes him special._

_Oh, Levi._ _The more Levi and I communicate, the further I raise this unsettling dissonance within us. I create tension and excite myself, and upon seeing him up front, I lose my mind. He doesn’t stress about this. His whole body screams approval. He becomes more open, liberated, at the slightest speck of my attention. I want to cremate this feeling in my gut when he looks at me, to feel like this forever._

_He wants undivided attention, but I’m a person who chose isolation as early as I became aware of its perks. And_ _I’m still vicariously hoping what Mikasa said is true, about his sexuality. Had that been clear, I'd know what to do._

_I’m hard to be with. But for someone who hates the idea of sharing personal space, I sure dream of love a lot. This is the first time in years I so willingly want to date someone, and he has to be underage._

_Of course he has to be. The universe is known to have a pattern of hating me._

_Jean leaves on Sunday morning. Upon coming home, I found out he’d folded most of his clothes. The laundry room was swept clean. His bathroom still had the utmost necessary things—his toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant. Some emptied bottles of shower gel and shampoo were tossed in tied-up bags, left out for trash._

_I don’t think his dad broke the news like that. I don’t even think it was his decision. Jean acts for himself. Jean’s headstrong and cares deeply for family. This only leads me to think he’s been concerned about his father for a long time. It saddens me we never got to talk about it—last year was so busy. Jean tore himself out of the Kirschtein family frame along with the first divorce and stuck to his mother because of moral values; it was long believed his dad cheated. He felt betrayed._

_I think Mikasa is bringing Levi to my place next week. He likes it here. Here more than the dorms, I’m sure. From what I’ve heard throughout my teenage years, the dorms are awful. They have minimal curfew regulations, so whoever wants to walk in or out is allowed to. Siblings. Novias and novios. Dealers. That part of town is very rundown._ _The way he speaks of his current whereabouts makes me think of when I lived in Maine—I lived in a terrible dormitory. My roommate was into anal and death metal. What saved me was that I had the privilege to move in with an on-set coworker of mine._

_So, journal, taken all in consideration—what if Levi moves in with me?_

_I’ll give it a week, surely. I need time to consider this before I even try asking. I know I'm rushing things. He’s young, he just switched states, we don’t know each other, but he can’t live with Mikasa and I can’t stand him living in that shithole dormitory. My other excuse is having a fat crush. That, really, is the deciding factor. That asides, I can’t even fathom the crippling loneliness that’ll reach me as soon as I finally realize I’ve been left all by myself. Maybe my purpose is selfish and we don’t share the same emotional range, but I’m beginning to feel positive change in our relations._

_Jesus Christ, every conversation is so sexually charged._ _Every look he gives me has complimentary meaning to the things he says._ _I’m not afraid of my sexuality around him. I don’t particularly hide any aspects of it. Like I said, I hope what Mikasa said is true. If any mutual attraction exists, I can cultivate it._

_I drove Levi back to the dormitory a few hours ago. Jean is home now. The sounds of his drawers being pulled open and slammed close again are almost rhythmical._

_I don’t want him to go._

* * *

Spring has officially arrived. Tree leaves, once deep burgundy, brown and pale yellow, are now sprouting from dry branches like green fingers. Fields become empty, hay that was collected in barns way before winter is now rolled and stacked outside, it becomes less cold at night. Farmers let the animals roam, the shifting ice atop the nearby river breaks, crackles, and the crisp air carries some uplifting aura, some feeling of life. The sun peaks over the mountain rim earlier each day.

It’s ten in the morning and I’m helping Jean pack. We’ve been up for a while now. I sent in my project as soon as I woke up; he went to see Mikasa before leaving. His plane leaves early tomorrow, so we started drinking already. We keep the window to his room wide open to let all the freshness in. The breeze makes my muscles tense; it’s cold in my old running shorts and a storage t-shirt I wore to bed.

I pass Jean a pile of folded shirts. To break the sadness-soaked silence between us, I bring up several topics, but every sentence dies down in the end.

“When are you coming back? Your ma said September.”

“I’m thinking August.”

Silence.

“August? Why?”

“Marco’s getting married.” He tosses the shirts aside, seemingly upset. “He just doesn’t fucking listen to me, Eren.”

“Oh, shit, right. He is. Cousins don’t have to listen. Actually, no one has to listen. Let him screw up, there's not much else you can do. I’ve seen this happen in my family so many fucking times, you won’t even believe.”

“He can’t legally drink and he’s getting married to some fuckwad Minnesota girl. Her dad’s a pastor. Her dad’s a fucking pastor, Eren. Imagine getting married to Nick's daughter.”

Oh, shit, Nick's daughter. I visibly flinch.

“That's tragic just to think about.” I walk backwards to his desk and take a swig of the wine we opened an hour ago. I wonder briefly if Levi likes to drink, and fall in a dreamy state. “Jean?”

“What?”

“When is the last time someone has looked at you with tenderness in their eyes?”

He looks back at the wine bottle; we’ve had a third. “You didn’t drink that much.”

“Jean, when is the last time someone looked at you tenderly?”

“Eren, my beloved, tenderness is best left to steaks and roasts.”

“Oh my god. Why are you so riled up?”

“Because shit happened.” Jean plops down on his side of the bed, shoulders low. “Mom told Mikasa I’m leaving before I managed to. That’s why she dropped off Levi yesterday and left. She doesn’t want to see me.”

“You’re leaving for five months, Jean.”

“So?”

“Five months isn’t that long.”

“That’s half a year,” he reasons. “Do you have any idea what can happen over the span of five months?”

“She’ll probably look for someone else,” I say, clueless of what he wants to hear. Definitely not this, however. "I mean, holy shit, life goes on. You'll have to make decisions tougher than choosing between your dad and some sheriff's daughter you can fuck in your best friend's house. You had your time together. Maybe she'll look for someone else, maybe she won't."

“I don’t _want_ her to look for anyone else. I also don’t want her to isolate herself and wait for me. I want her to have a life, Eren, I love her so much.”

“This is such a fundamental heterosexual couple problem.”

“Get _out_ of here with your gay shit.”

"The floor is that gay shit," I say, and partially lie down on his sand colored carpet. He doesn't react like I wanted him to, so I toss him his ripped black jeans and stay silent.

The wine tastes acidy in my mouth. I ate boiled eggs for breakfast and this mix isn’t working well right now. I wonder what I’ll eat now that Jean won’t be bringing home fried rice every now and then. I wonder who’ll mow the lawn. Who’ll help me stack wood and all the other things I do for this house. Levi looks too soft to be doing these things; not fragile, soft. I rather picture him writing poetry on a Sunday morning, in my kitchen, wearing just his authentic white t-shirt—or maybe nothing at all.

I _tenderly_ look at Jean. He’s still sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at the wall in front of him.

“Mikasa said Levi talks about you a lot,” he suddenly says.

“He does?”

“I guess. Is it mutual?”

“I _guess_.”

Two hours and another wine bottle later we’re on the couch downstairs, watching the TV, eating _mamá's_  kale chips and talking shit about music. Swans is playing silently in the background. Listening to Swans reminds me of a bad dream where everything is normal, but I constantly have an overwhelming feeling of distress. Every song of theirs is like that, for some reason.

With all Jean’s bags packed and nothing else left to do for the entire day, I get drunk enough to muster up the courage and finally confess I want Levi to move in. Jean reacts as I expected him to—with a very timid eye roll. “He doesn’t even talk.”

“ _Ser tímido por naturaleza,”_ I say, in sudden loss of words. “He doesn't know you, so he stays silent. And he just moved.”

“He creeps Mikasa out just a bit.”

_“Eso es lo major.”_

“Eren, I have no fucking idea what you’re saying.” He looks away from me and turns the volume of the TV up, and Swans’ entire discography—off. “Okay. Whatever. His interests include gothic literature, poetry, martial arts, and flying saucers. How is that anything like you?”

“How is that anything _but_ me?”

“You’re making my life very difficult right now. Even more so. I have to decide if some goth teenager is good enough to replace me for the time being. How long did you say he’s staying?”

“Just until he graduates. A few months. You'd be back to an empty house.”

Jean thoughtfully hums.

On the TV, there’s a beauty pageant show. One of the girls attracts my attention. Her coarse hair reaches down to the curve of her back. A burgundy belt is wound several times round the waist of her bodysuit, just tightly enough to bring out the shapeliness of her hips. The girl’s skin is a tone darker than mine and has a healthy glow.

"Look at that," I say _._ “Beautiful.”

“That’s not what I thought you’d say, but yeah. Thanks.”

“What?”

“I said, bum me one, _mi vida.”_

Recalling how I smoked on the balcony with Levi after he’d said the same thing, I smile. We head out for a cigarette. Jean whines he never took Spanish in school. I melt pits in the snow on the rail with my warm finger.

“Okay, I agree,” Jean says after his (my) second cigarette. Those go down without thinking if he’s drunk. “I’ll let him live here.”

“He could live here even if you disagreed, but I see what you’re going for.”

“I want rules. Levi can’t stay in my room.”

 

"He'll be staying at the sunroom for the first few nights."

Jean grins. "I hear you."

“It's the wine talking.” I scratch my nose. “Your ma transferred money for the repaint. Yesterday. Have you talked to Kath?”

He takes some time before responding. “Vaguely. We spoke on the phone some days ago. She said she was on speed and didn’t mean to ruin your car. I...somehow don't believe it. Kath was always on my ass for living with you and not my parents, or her. I spent more time with you than I did with her. She was so appropriative. She fucking hated you.”

I didn't know that. I never felt like she did. 

“I remember when you guys were still in love.”

“Kath does drugs, Eren.”

I feel like I uselessly brought up the thought of her. Jean seems to dislike this topic. He, really, always has. Even when they were dating. He never wanted to talk about what she meant to him.

Still outside on the balcony, I briefly take in the refreshing view of the mountain riff at noon. I wish I had a real camera with me instead of a phone-mounted piece of shit. Additionally, I wish I was less drunk to be able to take it all in a little better. Alcohol loves embellishing things. Spring sceneries are undeniably and unconditionally beautiful, though.

“She wasn’t the fire I dreamed of,” Jean suddenly says, disrupting my flow. “She was the fire I got.”

* * *

Journal entry: 

_All I did today was listen to April 8 th by Neutral Milk Hotel, even though it’s April 9th. I feel stuck in time and space._

_There is no horizon at seven. There is no horizon here, ever, but at seven, in April, earth seamlessly merges with the sky. A mountain riff stretches as far as I can see. Pink tints my blinds; it streaks the wall and mattress. I lie calm in bed, observing my bare body, striped with light._

_Jean and I watched Seinfeld last night and now he’s gone._

_Today while sitting in my car, trying to pull out of the gas station, I got screamed at by a redneck in a 1996 Ford, and it was the same approximate feeling as having to deal with a toddler. Like awkwardly trying to move past someone while you keep dissecting each other's movements, you hold a mirror to the face of god and see a little spark of yourself._

_Fucking gas stations. Fucking Sheetz._

_There was a fire. Abandoned shed near the trailer park. They only showed it on the news because it spread to Hot Anthony’s trailer. Hot Anthony is Greencastle’s famous Vietnam veteran soaked in expensive brandy and off-brand cigarettes. He calls them “tochka” cigarettes. I’ll ask Levi what that means._

_All this aside, I’ve decided what I want to work with regards the New York film festival: fires. I had dinner with Mikasa and her family yesterday. Sheriff said these could be very conscious commitments of arson, if this were a Thomas Harris novel. He discarded them as downtown kid leisure time activities. I still want to look into this. I apparently connect with child pyromaniacs. I myself have always gravitated towards sparks and flames, ever since I was a kid._

_I remember my birthday and what Jean said, and now this has been on my mind for hours. Days. I remember walking down the sunlit street of my workplace, which would normally cause no distress, but I had the feeling I was being watched. It was quiet. There were no cars. I didn’t see animals, or people, yet just out of the corner of my eye I thought I could see smoke towering above the following neighborhood._

_I set up a VHS and recorded the TV while they broke the news and showed footage of the fire. It looks nice and outdated, which is the look I'll be going for from now on. Jean said this is an amazing idea._

_I’ve been trying to pull myself together to ask Levi if he wants to meet this evening. Just recently I concluded I’d rather call him and ask about moving straight away. Five minutes ago I realized I could probably do a text message at best. What a coward, holy shit! At least I don’t need to compose it in any formal way, or so I think._

_I need time to think. This needs to sink in. A good cigarette wouldn't kill me, either._


	3. Sunbather (Third Circle)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo so Elias Bender serves as Levi
> 
> [Gazastrippin](https://gazastrippin.tumblr.com) on Tumblr.
> 
> [Playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/hentaivert/playlist/2rND5iE0iUjELcUuuIYn1o) here.

Journal entries: 

_April 10 th, Monday. _

_Gloom._

_It’s raining. All I want to do is smoke and listen to MF DOOM beats in scorching June sun. I want to occupy myself with something fulfilling, which is why I’d rather be at work than home on a rainy day. Because of how elastic my schedule is, I only have to call in tomorrow, so I’m here all by myself, listening to MF DOOM beats without the scorching June sun I so badly long for._

_I added Levi on Facebook to paint more decency into the whole moving picture. He approved the request almost an hour later, and I was given full access to all photos and posts he was tagged in. They were mostly photo shoots from modeling agencies and friends thanking him for participating in their art projects._

_ _

 

_Some of them, like Gone Fishing, drove me insane._

_Levi is featured in an album called Gone Fishing. In it, most pictures depict colored girls in various fishnet garments, standing mid-river, bathing in muddy water. It reminds me of SZA’s Babylon music video. I wonder if that took any part in the creative process._

_When skimming through the pictures, I gradually grew…aroused. The shots were good, the models were beyond any of my beauty standards, all intricate and otherworldly, the concept—inviting, but they just didn’t compel me the way he would. It’s not their fault. What I longed for was Levi—which is why the 31 st picture left my soul in shambles. I had to sit back to take it all in. _

_Standing firm between dark girls in ripped bodysuits and stockings, I couldn’t recognize him at first; him, a sun kissed teenager with a buzzcut, freckles, wearing all but a loose fishnet t-shirt and champagne colored boxer shorts. A thin head chain rested freely on his forehead, embellishing his dusted skin with a golden shine. A matching chain was hung on his neck. The sun must’ve been high above; it shone in a way Levi appeared almost chiseled, more mature, taller. According to the date, it’s gone August. He was still sixteen at the time. So boyish and lovable, knee-deep in the water, skin glistening, every curve defined, sharpened, breathtakingly beautiful._

_It was the entirety of my Monday that I couldn’t take my eyes off the computer screen. I ate dinner in front of it. I’m writing this in front of it, however turned off out of sudden disgust towards my uncharacteristic arousal._

_I don’t know what to do with myself anymore. Christa called. She got the job. I’ve been so caught up on myself I forgot she applied._

* * *

_April 11 th, Tuesday. My morning starts with leftover churros and Lolita. Lolita, because I want to punish myself for yesterday’s peccable actions. _

_“This is the monster you’ll become,” I told myself in front of the kitchen mirror, flailing a worn out copy at my own reflection. “¡Carajo! Don’t let four years grow no more.”_

_Four years, in retrospect, don’t mean much. So many people are happily together with an age gap bigger than this. What scares me, though, is the immaturity of teenagers, and the fact that age gaps have been circulating in my life too often for it to be a silly coincidence. Ymir was much older than me. Mikasa is older than Jean. Hitch is older than Armin. Girls around me pick younger men, for some reason. I’d love to know why. From my observations on the Internet and widely told stories of “sugar daddies”, it makes no sense. I thought girls would aim for experience, maturity, stability and selflessness, all of which a teenage boy can’t possibly possess._

_The amount of literary allusions in Lolita is so big it's almost impossible to decode. It’s a good book, I just don’t understand it. Parts of it are French and I'm not cultured enough to understand them, even after five years of French in school. My copy is old, so the foreign language is just italicized and left cryptic._

_Work was hectic. I needed that. They’re getting ready for a modernized Macbeth play._

* * *

_April 12 th, Wednesday. I had vast amounts of food for breakfast and wasn’t woken up by Jean leaving at five. I had a full night’s sleep. No sex. No TV. No video games. Nothing feels more blissful than unbothered rest._

_I actually think I’m p_ _reparing for the spring-to-summer transition chrysalis—upon dinner I notice I’m eating more, upon waking up I recount the hours spent sleeping to make sure I’m really getting that much good sleep. I’m reflecting more. Slowing down. Simplifying._

_My body seems to relearn what it means to be alone again. I’ve become slacker, I laze around. Out of boredom, I eat. The videogames Jean left behind are all rented and I have to take them back. There hasn’t been anything new on the TV. It’s getting to me only now, and even so quite slowly—this is, and always has been, my house, mine alone._

_It’s gotten so warm out on the balcony. I’m wearing a ball cap backwards and glasses tucked into my shirt collar. I’m noticeably strained by the sun’s glare despite this, and it doesn’t occur to me to use either my hat or glasses. I happily spent an hour on the woven chair, beating up the last pages of Lolita and getting love from the sun._

_My sister and I joined our parents to church this evening. Not the community one across the road, Salem Ridge, but my parents’ serious catholic church. It had been a while since my last time here. I felt uplifted, not because I got to confess my several forbidden interests, but because church as a whole is very freeing. Even if I never took religion as seriously as my mother did, I was raised on catholic practice and hold deep respect for it. Most of our closest family friends are the work of church; I got to meet them, too. They all said I’ve grown taller and gotten so, so handsome._

_We had dinner at a nice restaurant just four blocks down. Christa went on about how she’s been looking into more ethical eating lately, so she refused to have a big meal like we did and went for tomato soup. I told everyone about my plans to take on the film festival, and my groundbreaking theory about the fires: “Joseph said this is the wrongdoing of downtown kids. I’ve been feeling so inspired, so full of it, I think I’m just going to do it.” They like my artistic output, my papá especially._

_I fell asleep on the couch after getting home. There has been unsettling worry in my gut ever since Levi and I last met, and it fucking wears me out._

* * *

I’m woken up by a phone call from Levi the next day. I don’t get to check the time before answering.

“Hello?”

**“Hi. Are you home?”**

“I’m very home,” I sleepily inform. “Is everything okay?”

**“Yes. Is it too early? I thought twelve would be a decent time to call. It’s just that Mikasa promised you’d take me to Maugansville today, and I wasn’t sure you remembered.”**

Twelve?

I intensely rub my face to regain some specks of consciousness and sit up ever so slightly. “I wasn’t informed about this. Did she really say it’s this Friday?”

**“Is it April 13 th?”**

“I’d like to think so.”

**“Yeah, I’m sorry, you have to drive me to Maugansville.”**

“At what time do you have to be there?” I ask, already getting up, because by the sound of it, I’m probably late to my own funeral. “I can be by the dorms in, like, twenty minutes.”

 **“Two thirty,”** he says.

“Oh, shit. Okay, sure, that’s plenty of time then. I’ll take a shower, I’ll…eat.” The house feels colder than ever when I’m walking up and down the stairs in just socks and boxers. I fish out a cigarette from the pocket of my coat and stick it behind my ear. “What exactly are you supposed to do there?”

**“You know the school? Maugansville high school?”**

“Definitely do.”

**“See, I have volleyball practice at their gym. Like, tryouts, or whatever you call them.”**

Leaning against one of the kitchen cupboards, I soulfully think of him in women’s volleyball attire and nearly lose my mind. High-cut navy blue shorts that reach up to his navel, a white striped crop top, knee-high fucking socks, Gorillaz camouflage Converse sneakers… Gone Fishing flashes through my mind like a bolt of lightning, and I’m suddenly beyond enlightened—my purpose in life has _always_ been driving Levi to his volleyball practice in Maugansville high. How could I _not_ have known?

“Okay, sure,” I almost heave. “Do you need me to drive you back, too? I’m free up until five, I work in the evening.” I only say this out of solid hope he’d ask me to watch.

 **“If you want to, you can stay until the end and I’ll pay for takeout,”** Levi confirms my silent plea. **“I was hoping we could do something tonight, but it’s fine if you’re busy.”**

“Don’t you have school tomorrow?”

**“No. They’re doing some charity science fair and I don’t want to go.”**

“Alright. Well, huh. We can work things out this weekend, I guess, the house is free now and, like, forever.” I pause. “Have you heard the news yet?”

**“What news?”**

“Jean moved. To Ohio. I’ve been meaning to ask if you knew all week.”

 **“No, not really. Mikasa doesn’t talk to me as much as you think she does.”** He can be heard humming along to a song in the background. What he said holds some weird context I feel like I should be getting. **“By the way, I got so fucked up on tequila last night.”**

“Who in their right fucking mind gave you tequila?”

**“My roommate.”**

“Tell her she’s a piece of shit, you’re underage.” I stare at myself in the kitchen mirror, cheeks puffy, eyes far from awake. My shoulders have squared over the winter. For someone who thrives off of self-deprecating humor, I sure am vain. “Look. I’ll pick you up in two hours and stay during practice. Okay?”

**“That’s awesome, thank you.”**

“No problem.”

I don’t know what the person who owned this kitchen mirror before me did with it, but the unidentifiable specks are troubling. My experiences with mirrors have been varying. Sometimes I’ve seen an accurate representation of myself in my underwear, sometimes I’ve seen a rather idealized version of myself, sometimes a child-like version of myself, and at other times, at particular twilight hours, I’ve seen no reflection at all. Jean believes I'm constantly in some twilight zone.

I dress in light lounge clothes just so I wouldn’t have to smoke naked and head outside. It’s high noon. My ability to sleep until twelve surprises me. It’s either the absence of Jean or some odd spring planet factor leaving its mark on my sleeping pattern.

As with breakfast, I took my time with self-care—I showered, shaved, combed my hair for the first time in two weeks and even clipped my nails. However long the process lasted in my head, it really only rounded up to forty minutes. My perception of time has been excruciatingly slow this past week and I, once again, find myself with too much time and too little to do.

I decide I have enough time to look good. I just feel like I need to have a juicy, distinctive look today (I mostly tend to look effortlessly stylish, but not necessarily _distinctively_ stylish) and that maybe it’s healthy to get Levi’s new friends and teammates thinking I’m his undeniably attractive new _papi_  that drives him to volleyball practice now and then.

I figure I'll let Mikasa know I'm alive.

 She reads it almost immediately and can be seen typing.

 She doesn't respond after that.

I pull on a black ribbed turtleneck and tight jeans the same color. Thinking solemnly about Gone Fishing, I also put on my sister’s thick gold chain and end up looking like some foreign pimp from Southern California. This is a good look, I wholly support it. This severely screams I love driving my underage boyfriend to his volleyball practice just so we could fuck in my flaming orange, beaten and abused Impala to the sound of Kyuss and rattling railway traffic. He would later lie on my chest, we’d smoke, and I’d be reading his poetry from a worn notebook while combing my fingers through his coarse hair.

I spend spare time in front of the mirror. Christa has left several of her beauty products and bizarre facial masks lined up by a small, white cabinet, and I try out at least three of them. I don’t need to, I just do. My skin has always been pretty clear. If I break out, it’s usually just stress or lack of sleep thereof.

There’s firm contrast between the mud mask and my full, pink lips. My teeth look whiter. I grimace and observe myself from all angles, concluding my jawline is amazing.

* * *

_I want to have great sex in my car at least once before I die,_ says the corner of a page in my journal.

* * *

On my way to pick up Levi I realize my hands look awfully large. I can wrap my fingers around my wrist—and my wrist is all well and quite thick—and still have some free space between my middle finger and thumb. I’ve either gotten my _abuelo’s_ hands or lost weight, out of which the weight loss would be more likely considering my poor diet and regular periods of neglect in every shape and form.

The drive from mine to his doesn’t take long, but the scenery changes rather drastically from fields and farmhouses to a worn-out small town scene. The baby blue dormitory on this avenue looks ugly and abandoned. It’s rundown—the building has seen better days. Back when the dormitory was still an apartment complex, the front yard was always kempt. Using color is an easy way to give a front yard garden a lot of impact.

I remember passing the matchbox buildings when I biked from Mikasa’s house to Denny’s. I could’ve been five, six. Bright red African daisies clothed the front porch. White marguerite daisies and blue lobelia playfully cloaked the front walk. Yellow pansies added a bit of extra sparkle. Cats could be spotted on the leveled roof, windowsills, balconies. First floor’s second window to the street was always open, so the complex was sometimes surrounded by the scent of curry chicken or sweet cream rice pudding, and anyone passing would immediately lose appetite for Denny’s.

A few doors down there’s Hagerstown’s one and only brothel. At some U.S. cities you can still find neighborhoods that are popular among streetwalkers or areas where you can find erotic massage parlors or strip clubs side by side. Not much here, but people work with what they have. I think our area rather specializes in heroin use. That, really, is what tore down this avenue, at least I like to think so. Mikasa’s father speculates something went wrong with the owners. They haven’t closed the brothel, though. Because cops, same as marriage, are inherently corrupt.

The sunny image of what once was a beautiful block of apartments is replaced by sour reality. Everything has withered due to winter and neglect. The stairway is chipped all over and the once baby blue is a dusty grey at best. I stare at the entrance of the dormitory—wide, brown doorway, covered in various forms of self-expression. Mostly tags, pinned papers, writing. Stickers. Some tall girl is smoking right by the entrance, but I wouldn’t say she’s more than fifteen. I don’t understand how Mikasa, or her parents, or anyone, really, let Levi settle here.

I check the text message again. _Third floor, room 53,_ it says. _I’ll be out in five minutes._

Someone’s TV can be heard through the walls and my car, so I put on Angel Olsen’s song Never Be Mine and unbuckle my seatbelt. The car is my liminal space, as was the literature classroom in high school and our nearby Sheetz parking lot. The church parking lot is only liminal if it’s dark outside.

Olsen’s voice is so soothing and yet horrendously troubling. And she looks like this one girl I know, Bree.

I sink into the music and try to conclude what has been the gut twisting, agonizing worry in the back of my head these past days. Levi has, painfully enough, been there, too, and so have his merciless photo shoots, various neon tint pictures, fishnet shirts and detailed descriptions of his face my own journal now contains. There is something beyond this, something that is and always has been there; the scapegoat of all my love troubles and fear that has caused me to turn away from affection as a whole.

Abandonment? Feelings, outspoken but unanswered? I think I feel scared of rejection. It always worries me, but now more than ever, now that I’m really coming to terms with all of this. I haven’t seen anyone in a good while, and I wouldn’t mind an ounce of affection every now and then. Spring is in full bloom, June is briskly approaching, and my dream of a summer romance should probably be executed before I “go beyond the rainbow” (Levi’s Eastern European metaphor for dying). There’s always a miniscule chance the person I like won’t like me back, and I say miniscule because everyone normally adores me. And now that there’s someone I _crave_ to circle around like the moon orbits our planet, I start fearing the chance it’s not mutual. What if Earth just refused the Moon? What if Earth found no joy in Moon’s company?

When Levi leaves the building, looking Kevin Smith’s Dogma angel-like with his burgundy hoodie and black trench coat that reaches his mid-calves, and Adidas runners, not the same coal black as the Vans from before, I press my hot forehead against the window of my car and wonder what are my eternally damned chances of getting a hold on someone like this. He is well saturated with everything I’d look for in a person, and much more than that.

Halfway to the car, a bag slung over his shoulder, he stops, almost like he’s forgotten something. I roll my window down and rest my chin on my forearm. Light breeze runs over and through my messily parted hair, as it does with his, and we spend a second dreamily staring at one another.

“Good morning,” I finally say. “Get in the car, it’s fucking cold.”

He smiles and vacantly walks closer, inspecting my car. “I was wondering if you wanted to come in before we leave.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve seen your place, come see mine.”

An unsettling feeling rattles my entire stomach. I swallow my fiery wish to be ravished on a creaking, semen-soaked dormitory bed, full of unspoken teen lust and ghosts of so, so many prematurely conceived children.

“Let me park then.”

“Yeah, okay. The lot, it’s—“

“—on the left, I know, I’ve been here.” I wasn’t going to try and explain why I’ve been here. It’s safe to say my Tinder days are long gone.

I pull my car in the empty parking lot. Something in the backseat shifts and falls under my seat. Upon getting out, I run my eyes over the ruined layer of paint. It’s bright orange, in the approximate color of a highlighter, but with a cooler undertone, like blue, or something like that. Like a highlighter that’s been ran over black marker. I hope it doesn’t disappear after the paint job, that they keep the mellow authenticity.

I’m leaning on one knee as I reach inside the car’s backseat to get trash. The dangling of the root beer cans drives me crazy, especially on the bumpy road from our street to Molly Pitcher.

“Trash man on duty,” Levi calls from behind me.

“Shut up.”

“Do you need help?”

“Yes.” I hand him three cans by just twisting around and notice his eyes resting not so shamefully on my rear. Because the turtleneck I’m wearing is vertically quite short, a strip of my back is exposed, and I know where my Swans tattoo is. It’s right there, between my backbone and my hip, a square of Filth artwork: teeth.

With a handful of empty food packaging, old scripts and work schedules, we walk back to the dormitory side by side. Levi sometimes looks at me without saying anything. I don’t mind. He stared at my ass. We dump the trash in one of the containers in the back alley, right behind the parking spot, and start heading to the main entrance where the previously smoking girl is now butting it out on her thumb. Levi silently tells me how he used to do the same but then stopped out of fear of losing fingerprints and therefor a bit of identity.

He pulls me past the elevator, explaining why we’re not taking it.

“It—well, it _works_ ,” Levi says, jumping two steps at a time once we’re at the stairs. “By some crazy miracle, everything here works. It’s just that no one dares to use any of these offered facilities. We don’t touch the new coffee maker in the main kitchen, for example. We’re not getting a new one if this one gets broken.”

“How does the elevator tie in here?”

“It’s simple. If someone falls in the elevator and dies, and by doing so breaks the elevator, we’re still not getting a new one.”

“But none of you use it anyway.”

“That’s the whole beauty of it. Seeing something out of order drives new students away from this dormitory. You know, on open days. Which we have often. Fairly often.”

“They’re still trying to lure in students? I think I was still in high school when that whole thing was going on.”

“Oh, yeah. I’ve been here for, like, two weeks, and everyone’s rotating already. I’ve had two neighbors change. Just when I thought I’d finally found friends, they move out.”

We beat the stairs talking about how hard it is to meet new people in Hagerstown being a newcomer like Levi is. You mainly have to sign up for some physical activities or go to the local YMCA and look approachable to build some kind of a friendship island. Church will definitely give you options. School, work, family, if you got any of that.

His third floor room with a thick 53 atop of the door turns out to be mesmerizingly lovely. The only window in the room is big, covered by half-drawn blinds with the sun shining through. It hits me in the eyes, makes me squint through the unsettled dust floating in the air. Sloppy furnishing, two twin beds on each side of the navel-height divider; Levi’s side is considerably tidier and nicer. I would’ve imagined his rotating female roommates to have some consensus on room tidiness, but having normal roommates doesn’t seem to be a reoccurrence.

What puts me on hold is Levi falling back on the bed right after closing the door. I press the small of my back against the divider, cautiously, not to push anything over, and cross my ankles. I pretend this doesn’t amuse me in any way while my cat of a friend covers his face with his forearms and loudly sighs. His hoodie rolls up at this motion, showcasing a pale, narrow, but well-built waist and a wispy trail of hair just above his leather belt.

I lose feeling in my legs and have to rely on the divider fifty times more.

“You can’t believe how much I wish I didn’t have to go,” Levi says. “Hit space bar on my laptop. What time is it?”

“Almost two.” Turns out hitting space bar is a cue for oddly experimental music. “We still have twenty minutes.”

Levi doesn’t say anything, but he does smile, and it leads me to think what I just said should’ve been worded differently. Not better, differently. I’d sit down if I had where to. His chair is covered in clothes and I don’t entrust my weight to anything else in this room, asides from the bed, of course. Having scanned the entire living space, I dare to look at Levi and notice he’s staring at me from beneath his coated arm.

“You can come sit down,” he offers through the music currently playing.

I’ve been _dreaming_ of a scenario like this. For days end I’ve been dreaming about pursuing my beloved teenager I know nothing of, just some scattered details, about reluctantly falling in love with some mindlessly created concept of who he really is. I thought I’d known what to do and how to act when the time is right, but he impulsively follows no pattern or plan. It’s confusing.

I don’t have a coat or jacket to take off, so I just sit down by his legs and make him scoot over, closer to the wall.

“Why are you avoiding volleyball tryouts?” I ask.

“Well, you brought it up, this is my favorite topic. _Doing_ that was never my idea, anyway.” He seems upset, nostrils flaring. “Mikasa’s parents are my legal guardians in this state, and they think my antisocial behavior and general behavioral issues can be fixed by team sports.”

“Team sports. Like volleyball.”

“Yeah.”

I roll my shoulders to shake off tension. “They’re not wrong. I assume the problem roots beyond that, though.”

“Of course,” Levi says. “Everything does.”

“You’re quite social with me.”

“That’s because I like you. I don’t like everyone. I either go out too much and neglect everything but the person I’m into, or cave in and hide behind my desirable Facebook persona I don’t even know anymore.” He states all of this almost meaninglessly, like I’d known that from the start. “I was hoping this would be a fulfilling experience. That transferring would change everything I am.”

His chin appears slightly cleft in this light; something I’d never noticed before. The lining of his upper lip is so precise, carved, the same soothing shade of pink as my sibling bracelet from Christa.

“Momentarily, it will,” I silently say, watching Levi sit up and fix his hoodie. “You will change for the time being, but if none of the conditions at home are fixed, you’ll fall in the same self-destructive pattern as months before. That’s just how it is by any logic means.”

Levi tucks loose hair behind his ears and almost glares at me during a moment of weakness. He can be heard angrily breathing out. I then receive a question: “Why do you understand life so well?”

This throws me back a little. “I don’t.”

“You always have a solid say in things. I think that’s a sign you know what you’re doing and why.”

My head falls back and I stare at the ceiling. “It’s because I follow some general consensus on how to live. I don’t think you could ever guess what’s going on in my head, Levi. It's—it's hard, see, to pinpoint the exact mental state of someone you know. People know how to lie and everyone can learn how to fake their whole façade, either to appear cool, or to blend in. That's, like, the art of survival, I guess. In modern society it is.”

After a while of silence, he sits an inch closer to me. I don't let myself breathe too harsh or react to the motion in any way, maybe let my thigh relax and melt with his, but that's the most I do. That's the most I'm capable of doing while still saying within the confines of my Fairy Gothmother persona that keeps chanting this boy's out of my league and age group, and everything. He's way beyond anything I could ask for, Levi, that kid.

"You know, I think I'm pretty good around you," Levi says, pressing his chin against his shoulder one, two times. "I think I come off as normal. You know—normal, like I'm supposed to. You probably thought I'm a Burial-loving outcast and only listen to drone while masturbating."

My stomach spins at the thought of him masturbating, I'll be quite honest. I pick the thought up with my two fingers and drag it to the Trashcan of my mind. Please, go, let's not do this right now, I can't deal.

"Honestly..." I begin, but Levi covers my mouth with the heel of his palm.

"Don't," he softly says. "You did."

Levi's palm is warm and a little sweaty from being balled up in a fist. He's holding it against my mouth for too long; I don't resist, try talking back to him, or any of the sort. I just let him hold his hand there, and he stares into my eyes like this was the first time we met. Intense, blown-out pupils pierce mine. I find myself unable to look away, and inch a little closer.

I want to kiss him. His entire face carries some angelic fucking glow.

The barrier is still there, however, just as hard to overcome as the first time we met. I fear kissing him might not be the right thing to do. It—it just definitely isn’t. Maybe he wants to remain as we are, or maybe stray away from what all this has already become. 

I swipe my tongue across his palm to free my mouth. Levi croaks and pulls the hand away, but doesn't wipe it off in his jeans or anything. When I look at him, he's smiling; I finally begin to wonder how can teeth be this humanely straight. Mine are _quite_ , but not like Levi's. His just seem tailored, like funeral suits and music video costumes.

So instead of indulging and thinking more about _love_ and _premarital_ things, I choose the second most overwhelming thing on my mind: moving.

“Can I ask you something?”

He suddenly seems distraught and sits back a little. The smile eradicates itself. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”

“I _know_ this is kind of abrupt and you have all the right to say no,” I begin, fingers buried in my hair. “Hey, it’s nothing bad, don’t look at me like that.”

“There he goes, building it up like he's about to break the baby surprise.”

“I am. I'm pregnant.”

“What is it, Eren?”

My hands awkwardly wrap around my knee. “Well, I've had a lot of time to think, and—I was thinking if you’d be interested in—look. _Don’t_ look, you’re making me feel like an idiot.” I carefully turn his head away by his chin. His skin is smooth; no stubble, only above the upper lip. “I’ve been thinking about this since Jean left.”

“He’s gay,” Levi rhetorically concludes.

“No, this isn’t about Jean. This is about you.”

“I’m gay?”

My heart drops, and I instantly leap for convenience. “Are you?”

He _shrugs_.

“Taking in account your shitty apartment circumstance and that I’m presumably the only person you actually enjoy spending your days with, I have an offer. How long did you say you’re staying in Pennsylvania? Four, five months?”

“I don’t know, until the end of summer. If I hate it here, I’m leaving a week after graduation. It’s very likely I’ll drop out within a week, really.” He picks at a chewed out spot on his jeans. “I’m bad at this.”

“You’re here for at least five more months.”

Levi recounts my number on his fingers and then nods. “I guess so.”

“If you didn’t have to pay for anything and your only chore is vacuuming and cleaning the fireplace, and occasionally groceries, would you move in with someone until you graduate?”

He’s visibly taken aback. “Who are you trying to pair me up with?”

The wish to smirk, bang on my chest and hang neon arrows all around, all pointing towards me, is rather irresistible. 

“I mean, I have a two-story house I live in all by myself," is all I say, and even so quite anticlimactic.

“And?”

“Would you want to move in with me?”

Like morning light his response scatters my insecurities. “Yes.”

I hold my breath for a second to make sure I registered what he said. “Yes?”

“You’ll have to talk to Karen and Joseph, but I want to. Oh my god, yeah, that'd be so cool, yes. I want to. From what I’ve heard, you’re like their beloved son they never had. They always go on about how your parents must be so proud, and all that.” Levi discards my happy trembling and pulls his feet up on the bed. He still has shoes on. All-black Adidas with some custom thing on the back. Probably expensive, and must feel like heaven to walk in. “They hate me, man.”

“Why?”

He looks at me. “You’d wish you didn’t know me if I told you.”

Elton John fills the room and I carefully think of ways to discard this subject. I’ve noticed Levi likes staying discreet and putting serious matters aside for the time being, but all the time beings seem to stretch out. Will we ever talk about adoption? Or why his relationship with his adoptive relatives is way in the shitter? All of this makes him even more intricate and I feel desperate for any kind of clue.

“I can visit Karen after your volleyball practice,” I say. I _work_ today, why the fuck do I do this to myself?

“Just don’t force it.”

“What would count as forcing it?”

“If she keeps saying no, she has a reason. Even if she doesn’t say it. Karen is like that. Joseph is even worse.”

“Joseph’s the sheriff. He’s a cop. At least his reasoning will make some sense under the law. Karen makes emotional decisions, just like every other mortal person that hasn’t went to police academy. He’ll need to see some initiative from your side, though. You have to either call him or pay a visit. I won’t do this on my own.”

“I can do that. What time is it?”

I check my phone. “We have to go if you don’t want to be late.”

“I don’t think they have a changing room,” he suddenly says. “I’ll change in your car.”

My innards feel like I just high-fived Death herself. I'm not far from squirming. What I feel is the mental manifestation of throwing a Wii remote at your plasma TV.

“How can a high school gym not have changing rooms?”

“You’re uncharacteristically pale.”

“It’s impossible for me to be pale, Levi,” I say faintly, getting up. “Melanin.”

* * *

 Journal entry:

_Levi’s volleyball practice can be compared to a Frank Ocean album interlude._

_He’s not wearing quite what I imagined he would. That’s not a problem. The short while he spent changing in the back of my stuffy Chevy Impala was more than enough to feed me and my allusions. Mind me, dear journal, I don’t follow any specific religion, but my concept of the divine looks an awful lot like Levi’s milky white flesh._

_Wasn’t there a scene just like that in the cinematic take of Lolita? Where Dolores dressed in the back of the car and Humbert tried so heart wrenchingly to observe the process through his rearview mirror? Maybe the movie scene didn’t have a ballad playing as a part of the soundtrack. Mine did. The Spanish radio station in town has a heavy Mexican influence._

_I’ve been hit with this revelation that male bodies are far more attractive to me than anything else multiple times. I fall in love all over again, every time. And it’s weird, because before I realized this, as a little boy, I only had crushes on girls until I realized Italian TV played pornography after 10 PM._

_What I want to write down is that I get stared at a lot. By girls, mostly, from the opposite side of the gym. It gives me some sense of satisfaction. Realizing several people of Levi’s age group desire me fills me with hope Levi himself eventually might. Then again, I’m not a wise decision._ _I’m my own moldy backyard pool I’m drowning in, deprived of love and emotional intimacy._

_He’s very energetic on the field. The always bored, drained boy with little care in the world took on volleyball as his most despised enemy. He yells like a real Maugansville boy, loud, lovable, with just a slight ting of Russian when it comes to his teammates’ names. I can’t believe Mikasa’s parents had complaints about him being antisocial; he gets along with everyone, and quite well. Several people surround him after the tryouts. He’s beaming through and through. Probably what you’d call an introverted extrovert._

* * *

The practice ended sooner than both of us anticipated. Levi was hungry, so we stopped at Panera by the mall. He paid for my promised avocado toast and grabbed a vacancy page along with his salad. Munching on Romaine lettuce, he read it to me while we sat in the car.

“Want me to work at Panera?” He asks. “I could bring you the entire menu twice in the span of a week.”

“Are you trying to say I eat too much?” I wave a leftover corner of the toast. “I’m satiated by just this, and it's vegetarian toast.”

“That’s a _fat_ toast, man.”

“I can wrap my hand around it.”

“It’s because you have big hands. And it’s not vegetarian.” He tilts his head. “I see bacon.”

After we’re done eating I offer killing time at the railway parking lot. It’s one of my favorite places that’s also near home. The river runs along the tracks, just a few feet further, leading up to a rocky fall where Jean and I have spent countless summers swimming. Sun is surprisingly warming, even though it’s slowly sinking behind the mountain riff. We tilt our seats back and I roll the roof down.

Levi’s still in his volleyball attire, feet on the dashboard. His legs are rather muscular and visibly still in development. I let him play music, so whenever he moves to switch the song, I obsess over shadows forming where muscle flexes. What’s playing now is Justice’s live version of Canon. It’s a great song.

I scribble down more details of the day in my journal. It’s soon about to run out of pages. I write in these black and white marbled composition books because I have so many; my _papá_  found a whole box of them in a storage unit. They just seem so chic to write in.

“What are you writing?” Levi asks, nudging at my thigh with the heel of his shoe.

I slap at his knee. “Nothing. You promised me you’d show me your writing,” I mention. “I’m still waiting.”

His leg stays on my seat, pressed against my thigh. Sun falls on the fine hairs and scars. If I looked to the side, I know I’d see Levi sitting splayed out like me on the couch on certain Friday nights. His blue shorts barely reach the middle of his thighs when standing, but if he's sitting like this, they must've slid up.

I glance over, eyes meeting exactly the sight I feared—his legs spread, one of them on the dashboard, the other nudging at my own, thighs firm, thickset, well built. The sun casts playful shadows on his waist and tight t-shirt that covers it, hinting at a strong core and, for his age, quite admirable pectorals.

My heart rate might be slightly elevated. I’ve never wanted to stare back down at my journal as bad as I do now.

“You look like a flustered astronomy professor,” Levi comments.

I keep writing, though shakily. “And that means?”

“They wear glasses, are certainly neck deep into astrology, and half the class wants to fuck them.”

My glasses slide an inch lower on my nose.

He moves his leg, pushing at my journal so I can't keep writing. I put my hand on his foot, his calf pressed against my shoulder. It's these short, lighthearted motions and physical interactions of ours that make me want him even more. The lick at his palm, nudges, now this.

“Half of the class doesn’t know I’d disappoint them," I say. "Emotionally and sexually.”

Levi pulls his leg back to his seat. I finally dare to breathe and look around. I couldn’t distinguish the rattle of the train through the entire Justice discography up until the steel monster was about to pass us. My shoulders hurt from sleeping on the couch, but I still lean on my forearms, out the rolled-down window, and stare at the flashing colors as each wagon passes us.

The ground trembles with this passing force.

“There’s no beauty like the smile of intelligence, wrapped in that godlike melanin, dosed with an unapologetic crown,” Levi says from behind me, every word emaciated, well-pronounced, like those kids at spoken word, and when I turn around, I lose vision for a second.

He’s holding my journal—or, what I thought was my journal. It’s his, it just looks the same, the same marbled composition book as mine. What differs is that one corner of the cover is slightly burnt, and the front has four black Cyrillic letters that most definitely spell his name.

“Once again, uncharacteristically pale,” Levi informs. “You thought this was yours, didn’t you? What on earth do you write there, murder notes?”

“Murder notes would be better than this,” I gloomily say, holding my journal tighter than ever.

“Love notes.”

“Yeah.”

“Really?”

I shrug, just like he did when I asked about his sexuality in a non-confirmative way. “Read that again, please. I wasn’t listening.”

Levi clears his throat. “There’s no beauty like the smile of intelligence, wrapped in that godlike melanin, dosed with an unapologetic crown.”

“Is this an excerpt from a longer paragraph?”

“No, that’s you.”

I frown. “Me? That is the least me thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Say whatever, but I wrote that about you.”

“You _write_ about me?”

“Sometimes. You’re a big deal in the area, it seems. I feel like it’s going to stay this way the whole time I’m in Pennsylvania, so I write about you. Consider yourself taking a muse status.” Levi grins. “Here, read.”

And here I can finally say he writes English in a way only a non-native speaker could. It's like an outsider's view of the beauty found in sounds and connections between words you wouldn’t notice or take for granted as a native speaker. His synesthesia has a lot to do with his writing as well. Some paragraphs are distinctively about me, or at least hold some subtext that implies I am the underlying topic, but he doesn’t write in any way like I do. I write my journal like I’m talking to my _mamá_ having barged in the kitchen two hours after curfew.

I inform him on this and he stares angrily at the burning tip of his (my, yet again) cigarette.

“You know, and then you dress like that, too,” I say. “You’re so distinctively _not American._ Everything you do or say gives it away. It’s like a completely different planet, Europe. People dress in tracksuits, and…and eat porridge.”

“Sunflower seeds.”

“Okay, whatever.”

“What, you don’t like my fucking tracksuits?”

“I do. I love your tracksuits.”

“My mom used to call royal blue Russian blue because it’s so tacky and cheap in the wrong piece of clothing or color combination. And I _did_ own a tracksuit when I was a kid. But it was a Guess tracksuit, can you believe that? A Guess tracksuit, like every other Los Angeles mother. I was seconds away from Juicy. I almost wore Juicy.” He continues smoking and stays silent for a moment. “I hated being rich to no end.”

“Hey, it did end.”

“That I also hate. I wish it wouldn’t have.”

I purse my lips and return to his journal. Making him think and talk about his parents rubs me the wrong way. I feel like he becomes more distant after being honest. Making Levi feel bad was never my intention.

“My lowest and most desperate point is changing my former lovers’ contact names,” I read, amused. “It's bone-breaking. I can’t delete their numbers. The deal with it is that I’m always hoping I’d one day be good enough to pique their interest again. People stay in my heart. Maybe I wouldn’t love them to my full extent anymore, but what I feel towards them is always still enough for a happy relationship.”

When I turn to Levi, he’s pinching the bridge of his nose. “Listening to all of that really drives me over the edge,” he murmurs. “But it’s true. Or has been, at some point, during some moment of weakness.”

 _“Bone-breaking_ weakness.”

He belts out a hearty laugh. “Exactly. Flip the page. I think the next one’s on you again."

* * *

 Journal entry:

_April 13 th, Thursday night. Unwelcomed depression settles on me like fine dust._

_I left my car at service and paid for a paint job with the money Jean’s mom transferred to my account._

_Bad reviews of Wes Anderson movies make me question whether or not the world should’ve ended in 2012._

_I've been thinking of him again._

_Instead of visiting Mikasa’s parents, I took a bath and went to bed. Tomorrow might be a better day to approach this._

* * *

It was not.

“I’m not making any accusations, but if hit, dogs holler,” Karen says to my face on Friday night. I’m fresh out of work, tired like never before, took the bus, which I never do, and she decides tonight is the night she’ll be sturdy on every brought up topic.

Mikasa is in the living room, lazing in front of the TV and pretending she doesn’t know I’m here.

“I’m not making any accusations, but if hit, dogs holler,” I tiredly repeat. “Karen, this is called hoisting yourself by your own petard.”

“I understand you have good intentions, Eren, and I trust you. If this were my son, dear, matters would be different, but we are his guardians loosely and only because Joseph knows how to deal with him. Levi wasn’t sent here for ill intentions, or to have fun.” Karen folds her arms together. “He doesn’t need much more freedom than he’s already had his whole life.”

“Why do you think living with me is his expression of freedom or something of the sort?”

She sighs. “Because you’re both children.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Ackerman.” I tilt my head.

“Because living in the dormitory puts him in a place he knows nothing of. He has to adjust, get off his high horse, and go to school. I assume he doesn’t want to do that; living with you would undeniably be a dream scenario. No effort put into fulfilling himself and growing, no chores, no job, not even his own money.”

“I don’t mind making him work.”

“He’d mind working, however.”

“Not at all. He asked for the vacancy page at Panera and seemed interested,” I say. “You know my parents and how I live, Karen. Work isn’t something I’m afraid of. What I’m getting at is, this isn’t supposed to make anything easier for him. Just his living condition. I’d be happy to have an extra pair of hands, and you know my family would, too.”

She stands firmly, leaning against the kitchen counter with just her hip. The gap between her knees is quite wide; Mikasa says bowed legs run in the family. “I have a high caliber of what I find acceptable. I do believe you could handle this, Eren, but you’ll have to talk to Joseph.”

“I don’t want to talk to Joseph, Karen.”

“Joseph is the one to decide.”

I never wanted to make this a family scandal.

Karen spends some time polishing the kitchen island. I’m at the table with an empty plate of what was once fried rice, and a bottle of Corona, even through I’m driving later. This kitchen is very dear to me, pale orange, always smelling of comforting food. The rest of the rice is on the stove, in a large pot. I’ve spent most of my childhood eating her ube rolls and glass noodles.

“I’ll go talk to Mikasa,” I say and get up, beer in hand.

“Tell her to come get laundry.”

I head over to the living room and knock on the wall, hovering awkwardly between the couch and the TV. On the TV, there’s a news coverage on the fires. My interest is piqued immediately.

“You have to go get laundry,” I tell Mikasa. She stays unphased.

 **“There have been seven registered fires over the past two weeks in Hagerstown area,”** a pasty woman reads. **“Targets include dumpsters, a shed, a motorhome and a pile of tires. In this province, it’s one of the biggest arson files ever. So far, the police don’t know if it’s the work of one person or more, but it is largely speculated what’s going on is the outcome of downtown Hagerstown’s neglected education and accommodation system, forcing adolescents to turn to hazardous pastime activities.”**

“My dad’s gonna be on there,” Mikasa growls from across the room. I sit down on an armrest and drink my beer. We’re both glued to the screen, blue light painting our features.

And she was right. Senior Ackerman stands between other officers with pride in a shot that makes police look terrifying. They _are_ terrifying in practice. I happen to be gleefully privileged because of our parents’ good relations, but blacks and people my color usually get different treatment than family dinners with the town’s sheriff and free drinks at his daughter’s bar, even here, in Hagerstown.

“This is a bad angle,” I mention. “They all look overweight and unhappy. And Teddy weighs less than you do. Look at his gut.”

“When’s the last time you saw Ted? He’s fat now. Gay fat.”

“Ted’s not gay fat, Mikasa, he’s just fat.”

We watch TV for a few minutes. My back hurts from sitting on the armrest, it’s getting late, I’m supposed to be back at nine, and I don’t want to talk to Mikasa’s father for painfully obvious reasons.

“How’s Jean?” Mikasa suddenly asks, detaching herself from the previous topic. “He hasn’t called or nothing.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I guess he’s busy. I’ve gotten a cow’s ass on updates, so I just eat clouds for a living and wish I wasn’t so alone.”

Mikasa sits up to get the remote and turn the volume down a little. I curse her for this. They’re interviewing the police officers, her dad currently. All my equipment is in the car, but I don’t feel like getting any of it, so I’ll watch and record the replay later this week.

“I can come over if you ever feel lonely,” Mikasa vaguely offers. “After all, since you couldn’t move out, he did, and I think that’s exactly what you wanted, baby.”

“Wow, passive aggressive pet name? Why is your accent so raunchy?”

“Why are you talking mom into letting Levi move in with you?”

“Because I want him to move in with me,” I say, defensively. “I’m lonely. He hates the dormitory. I don’t see the problem.”

"Volleyball practice must've been something else, huh?" She smiles like she's got it all figured out. “God, this was so fucking predictable. _So_ fucking predictable. I told Jean I knew you two are gonna smash.”

“We don’t smash, collide, confront, or do any of that.”

“Yet.”

“Yet,” I confirm.

“This is so cool, though, don’t get me wrong. It's fine. I know what’s going on. I hate it.” Remarkably honest. _“My_ love life is far up the shitter, so I have to take it out on someone.”

“Your love life is far up in Ohio. Don’t be mad at me because of that.”

“You don’t have to take any of this personally. Is living without Jean any better?”

“Yeah. A little. I can do whatever and whenever I want. What kind of gets me, is… I mean, we’ve tried parting before, but it always came back to this, to living together. I once even found a good ad and was so sure this was it, that we’d finally part our ways. Most of my clothes were packed; I intended to move out that very weekend.”

“And?”

I shrug. “Me and the owner, we ended up having sloppy sex in her master bedroom. She never called me back about the rent cost and neighbors. When does your dad get home?”

“In a few. I can’t believe you fucked someone from Craigslist.”

I put my half-empty beer bottle down on the coffee table.

“You can drink, dumbass,” she scoffs. “He’s just my dad when he’s not the sheriff.”

Commercials fill the room with light and I let myself slide deeper in the couch. My back is relieved. I gleefully stretch my legs.

My phone in the back pocket of my jeans vibrates. If I’m ever not wearing these jeans at any given function, call the cops, because I’m being coerced.

 I stare patiently at the bouncing bubble. He’s probably bored. 

 I cover my mouth with the back of my hand and grin.

 My lower body goes numb for a second.

 Reality kicks in when the loud front door is slammed close with a laced boot. What I assume is Joseph kisses Mikasa’s mother with an open mouth in the hallway that leads to the living room, and Mikasa tiptoes to the corner to greet him as well.

I quickly type out another message.

 I don’t check his following response.

We calmly discuss Joseph’s day together while he eats and wraps his wrist with an elastic band. Mikasa pretends to think he looked good on the screen and that she agrees with everything he said, even though she turned the volume down and barely watched any of it.

“You’re like the Usain Bolt of being Michael Phelps,” she says.

“It’s almost like that didn’t just make sense,” I murmur while eating ice cream. Mikasa glares at me.

Our conversation about the fires slowly fades into a homely discussion on people from church and how Linda from Karen’s office is in horrible debt because she married a young, attractive Indian boy who divorced her three months in, and so on; the very least of what you’d expect from a family evening at my house.

While Mikasa seemed interested in Linda’s debt and all of what Karen had to say about it, I decided it might be time to break it to Joseph and start pushing matters forward. With my empty beer bottle and ice cream bowl in hand, I tilt my head towards the kitchen, silently motioning for a more discreet conversation. He runs his fingers across thick stubble around his chin and gets up with me.

Out of habit, I start washing the bowl I just ate out of.

“Just pop it in the dishwasher,” Joseph says upon walking in. He sits down at the end of the dining table with a loud sigh, and leans on his elbows. “Levi called.”

“He did?”

“This morning while I was at the station. You two get along, no?”

“We do. Did he talk about moving?”

“Yes.”

I close the tap. Leaking drops of water fill the thick silence. I’m suddenly not sure how I want this to go.

“I spoke to Karen about this,” I say, drying my hands with a towel, and sit down at the table next to him. “She said I have the power to convince you, and I guess I do. You really don’t see a lot of potential in him, do you?”

Joseph thoughtfully hums. “No,” he finally says. “But if you can make a difference, I’m willing to let you try. He hasn’t got much more to lose. See, Eren, what I value the most out of this situation is that Levi showed initiative and spoke to me personally. That, in his case, is great growth. Compared to what he was like when we went to Virginia three years ago, this is a different person. Even if it’s small, it’s still significant, and it shows how much something means to him.”

“Karen said something about Levi having too much freedom.”

“He’s far too liberated for his age, it’s true,” he agrees. “But his life is a rollercoaster. I assume you know about the adoption and what happened to his parents.”

“I know some of it? Mikasa told me they got hooked on cocaine and that he was given up.”

He shakes his head, wide shoulders shivering along. “He wasn’t given up, he was taken from them. Their villa burned to the ground on his twelfth birthday and everyone from his removed family pretends it never happened. The only reason I’m diving head-first into this arson file is because whatever is going on currently just develops his trauma.”

I sit silent, going through what Joseph just said.

Holy fuck. I get it now. I get why Levi shrivels up like a fern leaf whenever I talk about my documentary and great plans on shooting it. And when I mention he could be my pretty boy arsonist protagonist, he stops talking completely.

I’ve been so fucking inconsiderate. Then again, I couldn’t have known.

“For him to relapse and get better, adjustments need to be made,” I carefully start, drawing circles on the hardwood tabletop. “Spending time with someone healthy for him might leave positive impact, and this is not what’s happening in the dormitory.”

“He told me it’s fine.”

“It’s because he doesn’t want to complain to you. You’re the sheriff, after all. Levi’s current roommate is an alcoholic, and she’s nineteen. The previous one constantly implied she wants sexual relations with him.”

“A boy roommate would solve this problem.”

“Which is why I’m here,” I say. “You know my parents and our values. This can and will work, just give it a chance.”

“I respect your family, Eren, and I respect you. Just give us some time to think. I’ll talk to Karen and your parents before I call Levi’s.”

“When can I get an answer?”

“I’ll call him tonight. I never wanted to make him compliant and docile, Eren. Neither does my brother and his wife. You look at me too much like you’d look at an officer, and I'd like to believe I’m more than that to you.”

* * *

I crash home an hour later, feeling worse than ever.

My clothes smell like cigarette smoke, so I undress almost right after locking the door and toss everything in the laundry basket. I don’t feel like taking a shower or doing anything excessive. Not even hunger could get me up from the couch. I just sit in my underwear in front of the TV, limbs slack from exhaustion, hair pulled back under a beanie because I put coconut oil in as conditioner and plan to leave it in for the night.

So that’s his trauma. The house fire that burned all ties between him and his family.

I pull out my On Avery Island vinyl and put it on the record player. The lyrics to all songs on this album are written down in a separate journal, in my 2009 handwriting, accompanied with incorrect guitar tabs and modified lyrics. I flip through it and find my favorite part.

_And you seem so bruised, and it's beautiful as it's reflecting off from you as it shines. You're in the bathroom, carving holiday designs into yourself, hoping no one will find you, but they found you, and they took you, and you somehow survived._

Three Peaches plays mellow in the background, and I suddenly want to cry.

I softly, tearlessly sniffle and pull my bare legs close to my chest, hugging myself in a moment of weakness. I have no reason to feel like I do, but to overcome this chronic feeling of emptiness and abandonment I need time for myself, and I’m unable to cope with it any other way. I want to call Levi. I want to call Levi and tell him I’m sorry about what happened. My wish to comfort him overwhelms me and makes me feel indifferent. The Levi in my _head_ needs it. I don’t know if he actually does.

My hand reaches for the phone, but I change my mind midway.

After wailing to the entirety of the album and getting up only during Song Against Sex, I pull myself together and head to the kitchen to get a nightly snack. I settle for nachos. The couch is too welcoming and some channel is showcasing Twin Peaks. What comes later is some variation of American Pie, except it's supposed to be seriously explicit and set in 16th century England. Maybe Italian TV still plays pornography after 10 PM. If so, I'm here right on time.

Because I’ve cried so much and felt so unbearably lonely, I decide it’s been too long since I’ve last touched myself. I act accordingly. Watching Twin Peaks with my boxers hunching at my knees is a little unsettling. Masturbating on the couch is more than a little unsettling, but since this is possibly my last evening in solitude, spoilage of Eren Jaeger has to happen.

I've been starved of meaningful affection for too long. God, if only I _had_ someone.

If only Levi was here.

The thought of him now, with my hand down my boxers, is unnerving, but I close my eyes and think of what he would do.

What...would he do?

His hands would securely run up my hips, along my bare waist, and his pale, strong arms would wrap around my chest in an attempt to pull me closer. I’d hold back, of course, I’d hold back, unable to shake the fact that I’m not allowed by law to indulge in his inviting magic, deep cologne, weary voice. Levi’s all-seeing eyes on my neck, darkened with need, seventeen, seventeen, _seventeen_ , unbelievably so, but fucking seventeen nonetheless, and agonizingly attractive, and smart, and just so, so good.

I think briefly of how I want his hands on my neck, how he could press my butterfly knife there, too, with just enough force for me to edge, and maybe whisper how much he likes me, and tell me I'm the only one he sees himself with so I can hoarsely murmur the same.

I find myself out of breath far too soon. Until now, I'd been keeping the pace intact, but it gets hard when my mind opens up to the thought. The thought that, despite harsh reality and feared rejection, we can be together in my mind, we can use each other however I want us to.

I swallow insanely dry.

Our bodies, tightly flushed.

He would drag his teeth down my velvety skin, nib at my neck, and maybe glide the tip of his tongue lightly to my mouth. Kiss me, he'd kiss me. I'd love it if he did. The buttons of his shirt scraping my skin, an undeniable force against me, Levi would make me stagger backwards, make my back meet the wall so he can slot his firm thigh between mine. I'd just break. I know I would, I’d break this instant if I could. I’d give in to Levi’s touch, sliding lower against the wall, my cock brushing surely against his leg, ears full of "Eren, _yes",_ my hands grabbing at his ass. My fingers would get caught on the back pockets of his jeans, but he’d so close, so warm, approachable and finally _mine_. No matter how close to adolescence or full of hardship, in my loving arms is the place he can settle in forever.

I indulge further, thinking of every possible scenario I can plant him in, and I’m soon heaving against the inner corner of the couch, full of hope what’s happening now will never find it’s way to the surface again; like old TV remotes and bits of cereal stuck in the endless crevice between four cushions. I come, anticlimactic at first, but through the last few strokes my stomach involuntarily shudders and I cover my mouth with my free hand, unable to suppress what’s clawing its way out of me. I tremble for a few seconds, my dick in a tight grip, and then messily wipe my stomach clean with the back of my hand.

Not even once during the following few seconds does it strike me I should regret this. And then, god, it dawns on me, and I realize I've breached my own golden precedent: never beat it to the thought of people you know. And thing is, this never happens. This has never, ever happened to me before.

I breathe in and out, and shamefully squeeze my eyes shut.

And then my phone rings. Almost considerately so, like whoever is calling waited for me to be done. I give ten more seconds for my heartbeat to slow down and cough before checking the caller.

My face fills with heat.

My hand smells like semen and sweat when I press the phone to my cheek.

“Hello?” I breathlessly respond, pulling my underwear up the best I can singlehandedly.

 **“Hi,”** Levi breathes through my speaker. **“They decided. I’m moving.”**


	4. The Burning Swan (Fourth Circle)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’d like to thank [David Egan](http://baronegan.tumblr.com) for being such visual inspiration for my films, writing and general aesthetic. Please support him and his work in whatever way you can. His pictures play a big, quite intricate role behind the melancholy of Eren's character.  
> [Gazastrippin](https://gazastrippin.tumblr.com) on Tumblr.
> 
> [Playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/hentaivert/playlist/2rND5iE0iUjELcUuuIYn1o) here.

Since my car is in service, I’m driving around with _papá’s_ red Ford truck. It’s harder to drive in. The trunk makes it longer than an average car; I have to make late turns and Hagerstown drivers don’t like that, despite the thrilling fact that 85% of all people in Hagerstown own trucks. We’re the farmland population, get on with the times. My Impala isn’t a compact car, but I know how to maneuver with it better than this monster in which you feel ten feet off the ground.

On my way to pick up _el chico,_ I listen to Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart. What’s good about this car is the aux cord and attached cassette.

My hair is still full of coconut oil, tucked back underneath a Toronto beanie, and I feel something churning in my stomach that’s hard to describe; the closest would be "light young adult depression", "regrets after an episode of softcore fetishization of a peer minor", "mulatto man falls in love with unapproachable angel" or "Eren Jaeger, 21, continuously bitter because of his own actions and decisions, and won’t ever change".

When I finally got over my initial shock and asked Levi when would be the best time to pick him up the following day, he asked me if I was kidding and then announced he’s ready to move _tonight_. And so I agreed to pick him up in the near two-hour span, with a pit stop at my parents’ house for late tea, to show off their son’s new, above the norm attractive housemate.

I’m still in a state of denial thinking of Levi led me to an orgasm, but currently discard the guilt trip and leave it in the front pocket of my shirt. All it did was make matters worse and my affection for him grow, painting our one-sided relation completely black and white.

When I park behind the dormitory, I get out of the car for a cigarette and realize I don’t have a lighter on me. After I rummage through the glove box, I conclude I have no idea where two of my favorite lighters went. The blue one, from Jean, and a pale pink one, presumably Christa’s, the kleptomaniac I am. The only person I’ve smoked with recently is Levi, but he never has a lighter on him, as far as I know, so I’ve probably just lost them. I did find matches.

A cigarette later Levi walks towards me in a bright blue vintage windbreaker. Along he’s dragging two suitcases. On his shoulders is a backpack. He’s wearing black jeans with cuffed ankles, and red socks. Seeing him in flesh again takes the guilt trip straight out of the front pocket of my shirt and tosses it out there, on the ground, on one of the faded paint lines on the asphalt. "Look at me, Eren just came thinking about you." I feel mesmerized in an instant, but try to keep calm.

“Again we meet,” he yells across the parking lot, voice a little broken near the end of the sentence, maneuvering around sleeping cars. “Again the parking lot, our beloved spot where time is nonexistent, again the fluorescent lights and stiff Belarusian poetry.”

“Again, greatly lowered self-esteem,” I say. “Hello, it’s late.”

“Hello, fuck it.” Levi high-fives me when he gets to my car. The Ford gets recognition almost immediately as he points an indirect finger in the direction of the truck. “How many cars do you own?”

“You won’t believe how many cars this Pennsylvanian owns,” I say in a news reporter voice. I could be a The Onion article, but weaponized. “This is our family truck.”

It’s cold outside, but it isn’t raining, so Levi puts his suitcases in the back and I strap them down for safety. The space behind the front seats is only enough for one person if they sit sideways and don’t breathe. What’s in there currently is all of my portable film equipment. Levi starts going on about Kendrick Lamar’s new album and I listen to him talk while pulling out of the lot. The drive through town at night is silent and calm. My Ford blends in in everyday traffic, but now it’s almost roaring and obnoxious.

We get stuck before a bridge that goes through the forest. The traffic here is one-way, and I can spot at least three police cars.

“Such a nice bridge…” Levi absentmindedly says, poking his head out the window. “Look at that, so serene.”

“Such a nice traffic jam.” My on-road patience is usually decent, but I’m tired and I hate this bridge portion of the road from Hagerstown to my parents’. “What is going on? Do you see anything?”

“Not yet.”

We move forward by a few feet. Some cars are parked on both sides of the road, and many people have stepped out of their vehicles for some reason. My initial assumption is that there’s a fire incident. Again. I want to turn around for the sake of Levi and get out of the car for the sake of my documentary.

I sit up straighter and stare at a handful of policemen surrounding a neon green car. The shape of it reminds me of a Viper. And believe you me, darling, _I_ believe in saving the environment, but wave this thing’s keys in front of my face and you'll have a No. 11 the length of the street before you can ask "would you".

“Oh my god, it’s a Dodge Viper.” I shake Levi by the shoulder, having recognized the car. “They’re writing a ticket for a dead man. Levi, look.”

He does, and the glint in his eyes is affirmative.

I spot officer Teddy amongst all other policemen and roll my window down once we get close enough. Ted’s gut sticks out the same as it did on TV. He really has gotten round, unhealthily so, and I’m starting to believe Mikasa was right. The chubby waist and muffin top, it’s a gay thing. He used to be traditionally handsome, by most standards, but a little bit too ridiculous to keep up such pretenses unless it played to his immediate advantage.

“Good evening, officer Ted,” I politely greet the man, leaning out on my elbow, and knowingly turn the engine off.

“Evenin', Eren,” Teddy takes back, pacing to my car slowly as ever. Our first name basis acts as symbolic proof and typical criteria Levi chose the right person to live with; sadly there’s little to be proud of. I can’t brag about knowing one policeman after another when everyone and their mother knows Teddy. “I advise you don’t take 81, it’s full of them flashy ones. A whole lot of action going on now that the snow’s gone.”

“I don’t blame them,” I confess after laughing (everything he says is supposed to impressive). He looks at people like that, with the intention to make them laugh and him—off top important. “If my Impala got what it takes, you’d catch me cruising on 81 every night.”

Teddy then takes a step back and looks at the car we’re in doubtfully. “Where _is_ your Chevy? D’you finally sell it? What for?”

“Baby’s getting a paint job and I’m trying to be a working man for my parents this week. People move out of their units in late spring. Tell Howard he’s late for 99 and that he should pick up the phone when I call, he’s an officer, for god’s sake.”

“Will do.”

“What’s with the Viper?” I point my chin at the car. “Speeding ticket?”

“That Viper? Nah, the car’s just a real candy to look at, is all. Every other driver here stops to take a picture. Crazy fella, a Dodge in Hagerstown. It’s like driving a Lambo in the desert.” Teddy takes some time looking at the car over his shoulder and whistles.

The longer I know this man, the more I’m convinced Teddy shouldn’t be a cop. I don’t know which academy he graduated from, or if he has any basic education on law and order, but to me Teddy is the person to work at a barely-functioning K-mart where his hilarious life stories only matter to lost tourists, local decaying community that knows about every second of Teddy’s life, and me, of course, because I’m a slimy, fake person around people like him. Your sanity might be seconds away from crumbling, but you have to keep up a fun, bubbly, eternally boring and barely fulfilling exterior with Teddy, otherwise he’ll drive you to the police station thinking you’re severely depressed and lonely, and feed you cheap powdered milk coffee with whatever is left over lunch; usually raisin bagels. Directly or indirectly breaking an extrovert’s heart is a catastrophe; don’t learn this the hard way.

I feel a finger poke at my right thigh and turn my head towards Levi. “Yes?”

“Why does he know you?”

“Through Joseph. My family distantly knows everyone from the station. They rent units from us. And I'm going to mention this for the haughty side of me, but everyone knows the Jaeger family.”

“I get that you know them, sure, but why are you _friends_ with the police?” He silently asks. "That's—weird."

The question throws me off. I put the small jar titled “Officer Ted” asides, and pick up a large, heavy jar, titled “How To Respond To Someone I Like When They’re Being Unreasonably Passive Aggressive About A Touchy Subject Part III: The Police Force”.

“I—I don’t know. I was situated in a family that respects the police force, as unfair and ineligible as it is.”

“But you’re chumming with the cops.”

“Dude, it’s not like that. We don't— _chum,”_ I confusedly say. Then, I lower my voice. “If you weren’t as lily white as you are, you might understand why staying in good terms with the town’s police force is so good. Why it’s generally good in America. You lived in Virginia, you should know at least something.”

“What, you think I’m mad dumb because I’m white?” Levi whispers back, rash. “Who ever said I was white anyway?”

“Your face screams white. You pass. Sorry for racial erasure, but you pass, and damn well so.” I pull a curl of my hair from under the beanie to emphasize my point. I’ve got the loosely curled bi-racial hair that is so common in our family and all across the States. “I don’t. There’s no way on earth I pass.”

Levi leans in, ready to respond, but I’m saved from the backlash. Teddy, having devoured the car with his gaze alone, looks back at me, his eyes dreamy and filled with sizzling hope he could one day own a Dodge Viper.

“You talkin' to me?”

“No, it’s—it’s my passenger.” I point a thumb over at Levi.

Ted leans in and looks at him, being now informed I’m not alone. They observe each other for a short while, and Levi shyly greets him with a slight nod. I see his finger sliding down to the volume button of his phone to silence Kendrick Lamar.

“Friend of yours?” Teddy asks in the same nosy manner as he does with most things.         

I tilt my head. “Sheriff’s nephew, Levi.”

“Good to meet you, son.”

“You too, officer,” Levi says, somewhat distant. There is a nearly visible barrier between him and any kind of public sector service. They shake hands over my lap.

Ted continues to ask mundane questions about _papá_ and whether my parents are going to go to Mexico for the summer. I provide him answers like a pop quiz. Good I turned the engine off. The car would’ve died down. This process is always lengthy.

He lets us go when the road clears. I offer Levi a picture with the Viper, but he refuses to get out.

* * *

I find out my parents are going to Georgia next week to visit _papá’s_ family and look at an RV they want to buy. It means I have to drive by the drop box three times a day, keep up the accounting part and make several calls to warn people about late rent. The latter of it would be my least favorite, but it trains self-confidence.

 _Mamá_ is very keen of Levi. Christa is in her room and _papá_ was already asleep by the time we arrived, so this evening altogether was a homely cup of tea showcasing how well I get along with my mother. That’s not exactly what I wanted to achieve.

We do get along well, incredibly well. She was the one who instilled me with everything—from a sense of artistic hunger to love for reading, to a vague contempt for authority. She gave me my first video camera. I’d turned nine that day, and said I wanted to record some birds. _Mamá_ asked, what birds, and I led her to a pile of sawdust where a crow was picking at some dead animal. This video is somehow significant to me up to this day. I spliced it into a movie I later submitted for a festival, and won gold for having “intricate design and universally disgusting output”.

 _Mamá_ —and I only call her that within family or in my journal—accommodated to the idea of making Levi work fairly quickly by asking him to get wood and carry it to the basement. There’s a door to the basement right underneath the staircase balcony, and wood is all across the yard, similar to what our layout is like. My parents’ house is built after my _abuelo’s_ house, which is why moving out just felt like time traveling to a concrete period in which our house has gotten fifty years older and the toolshed is on the other side of the garden, for some reason. Probably some Kansas crack pipe Dorothy thing.

“Very pretty. He looks like an angel,” _mamá_ admits to me after giving Levi gloves to work with. I turn on a light that shines across the garden in a long streak, and we watch him fill up boxes and carry them across the yard. His white shirt shines from afar. “A young Jesús Malverde.”

“He’s no Jesús Malverde, _mamá._ I am. I think it’s just the way he talks, the accent and the mannerisms. Armin says Levi’s an aristocrat, that’s what he calls him.”

She shakes her head. “Too humble for an aristocrat.”

“Nah, he's right. The blue windbreaker he’s wearing was two hundred.”

 _Mamá_ clutches her chest. _"Dios."_

“I know, I don’t want to talk about this, lest I sound like some envious middle-class, god forbid, but I brought it up.” I pause. “I have this theory that he might have steady as _hell_ income from—well, see. I’d guess his parents, or adoptive parents, or something, but Joseph said he’s earning his own money. Karen, again, said he lives off of someone else. _Someone_ is definitely sending him money still. I think Joseph’s brother, but feel free to shoot me in the head if I’m wrong.”

"Must be a lot of money, then."

"Yeah, a hell lot of green," I mention.

“I spoke to Karen today,” she says. “They're worried.”

“Worried about the only failsafe option,” I snarl. “Cool. I wonder whom they want Levi to be with, in that case. I call dibs on the Pope. You can guess now, _mamá_. _”_

She swats at my arm. “Get over yourself. It's not you. In this case, it's them. They know you two get along remarkably well, and that does not help Levi’s character or antisocial behavior. He doesn't get to face obstacles of any kind. You are going to be the only person in his life for months.”

I fail to see the downside of this.

“That’s great, I’m as social as they get. What exactly _is_ the point Joseph and Karen are trying to make?” I ask, sliding my toes back and forth on a gap between the floorboards. “What are they trying to mold Levi into? A bureaucrat? I’ve been wondering about this for the longest time, _mamá_. They want him to be born again, it seems, because this kind of person isn’t what they wanted to look after.”

There’s a weak scream from the woodpile by the fence. _Mamá_ and I share a terrified glance.

“Levi?” I call out. “Are you okay?”

“I think I stepped on a hedgehog,” he wearily yells.

“Did it hurt you?”

“It hurt my feelings.” Levi’s blue windbreaker dives back into the streak of light. “He was squeaking like Tails from Sonic, and Tails was a fox. I’m almost done, by the way.”

“The problem of being faster than light is that you can only live in darkness.”

Levi uncontrollably laughs and walks backwards, back to the crates of wood.

I look back at my mother. She’s staring at the dark, blurred horizon in disbelief. “If you were to stay in more, I would say you two are the same person. You've been saying this same kind of nonsense your whole life.”

“Look at how good this whole thing is, _mamá._ I get to grow to love myself _and_ I’ll get to know what being a father is like,” I say, and grin. “I’d be so inhumanly bad at kids. I’d forget to pick them up from soccer practice and they wouldn’t even _have_ soccer practice, that’s how bad of a father I’d be.”

“Lest you torture _el_ _chico_ with your attention, Eren.”

“But I want to,” I whine. I stare across the garden, at the kale that survived the winter, an empty bed of potatoes, the shed, the swingset; the place I spent my whole life in. “I like him.”

“Since when do you like sugar boys? _Nunca pensé que estarías con alguien así.”_

 _“Todo el mundo tiene un diente dulce._ Like wise men say, _me vale madre._ It can’t possibly go wrong. I’ll go see if Christa is still up, I miss her.”

"She was doing yoga when I last walked in."

"I bet she's slacking."

I head back inside. Our old bedrooms are upstairs. She stays here far more often than I do; I only did when our parents left for vacation and Jean could upkeep my house. When they leave for Georgia, Christa will stay here, and that’s how it will be from now on if Jean moves out after coming back to Pennsylvania.

One thing about growing up and seeing your family disperse into private miasmas of troubles is that, all of a sudden, the giant box of graham crackers meant to be split among the proto-American family of four is now all yours for the taking. The spoils of war are sweet, I guess, in some way.

The gaps of Christa’s bedroom’s door emit soft light. I knock and walk inside.

“Hello,” I silently greet her. “Your dear brother, the boy who goes to Sheetz in the early morning for sustenance, is paying a visit.”

“You look depressed in your new Facebook picture.”

“It’s because I am.” I close the door behind me. “I may _look_ depressed, but can you ever see a person’s soul through a pictorial display? No. Unless you’re Sam Herring.”

“Of course.” She’s sitting cross-legged on a yoga mat, back straight, hair braided around her head. These are _mamá’s_ favorite braids; she always did them when Christa was young. “I thought I heard someone talking. Are you alone?”

“I came with Levi.”

“Levi? The same Levi from your birthday?”

“Yeah, my _chico._ He’s moving in with me. I wanted mom to meet him so she doesn’t get a stroke when she comes to get the leaf blower and there’s someone in the house listening to Lil Peep and crying.”

We sit in silence for a while, until Christa theatrically blinks like a hummingbird flaps its wings. “He's what, now? Is there something I should know about?”

“Asides from me being mindlessly in love, probably not.” I sit down on her bed. “I’m lost. This is getting out of hand. I told _mamá_ and what she basically said was that he’s a bad decision, just like every decision in my life. She didn’t say that, I’m rephrasing, but she meant it.”

“Yeah. You know she tends to be right. Is there at least any vague proof he likes you too?”

“Vague, yes. Really vague. But me, being the oblivious fuck I am, I could also misinterpret any given signals and dive headfirst into some bullshit. If I could change _one_ thing in my personality, it’d be the ability to like someone longer than a week.”

She takes her phone and quickly scrolls through it. Her long, painted nails tap the screen several times as she counts something to herself.

“Your birthday,” Christa then proudly says, “your birthday was sixteen days ago. You _are_ in love, brother.”

Amazing. It doesn't make me feel any better to be now fully aware of the fact that I'll be living with someone I know for two weeks and change, and that I'm complimentarily in love with the same guy, too. He could potentially be a serial killer. He could eat pizza with pineapple and I'd only find out after letting him move in.

This is a first-grade disaster.

“Do you want to come meet him?” I ask. _“Mamá_ sent him to get wood, but he should be back by now.”

“She gave me your old silver statue of _la_ _Virgen de Guadalupe,_ saying she’d found it in the basement,” Christa says, getting up. “Take it if you want it back. It’s downstairs by dad’s piano.”

We head back to the kitchen where _mamá_ is feeding Levi chocolate chip cookies. His hair is all tousled and slicked back; the bangs are so long they must’ve kept falling on his face while he was working. He’s mid-bite when Christa appears from the stairway and puts the cookie down.

“Levi, this is my sister, Christa.” I gesture at my sibling. “Christa, this is Levi.”

"Hey," Christa says.

“Wow, you look like Sheryl Lee. You know—Laura Palmer, from Twin Peaks,” Levi immediately says. “Hi.”

Christa falls in a state of despair; everyone who’s seen Twin Peaks says she looks like Laura Palmer. I don’t think she does. Palmer has a more sturdy face; she generally looks like a business-oriented woman.

We get back home when it’s change past midnight _._ I feel restless and offer smoking a few in the church parking lot, to which Levi agrees. We sink in odd silence, the one that comes naturally after meeting one’s family, full of theories of the ways they were raised. And, of course, worries whether you did well presenting yourself.

Deep red neon from the locked Chinese cart beams down on the sparkling street, covered in fine April ice. The light is rich in pigment and reminds me of a dark room. This same effect, on budget and in cinema, can be achieved by taping your windows with red serene wrap. Yellow, from the entrance of the church, wraps us in a foggy, golden glow. The row of streetlights sheds a baby blue shade on my red Ford. This juicy mix of lighting makes me pull out my portable setup from the back of my car. I manage to shoot a minute long, gloomy wide-angle clip, until Levi interrupts my professional silence.

“I was meaning to ask all week, but whose heart did you break?” He asks, chin pointed at my car. “The Impala was really beaten.”

Her deformed side and scratched bumper didn’t take away any of the authentic beauty, but she’d seen better days. Levi has been sensitive to these things, observant. He also went on about how _mamá_ is a very reserved, focused and aware person on our way here, chanted all about her speech and how she only uses formal English when speaking. I then explained how informal she could get. _A Mexican mother,_ I said, _you haven’t seen the shade mamá turned when she caught me smoking, and you wouldn’t believe what a whole new world of vocabulary exercises I discovered._

But whose heart did I break?

“Nobody’s,” I say, calmly, changing the lighting settings of my camera. The red appears more sufficient now.

Levi watches me work. I only take my eyes off the display once to see he doesn’t believe me. It’s the way he smiles, with his brows low; squinting.

“Who did you get in trouble with?” He asks.

“Girls.”

“Your girls?”

“Jean’s girls. Can you slowly walk in the shot?” I gesture, pointing at the few faded lines of the parking lot. “From here. This one. Just walk up to the car and keep talking.”

Levi looks at me again, unsure. The only color that stains his face is the Chinese red. Almost lazily, he takes off his windbreaker, my favorite golden-buttoned shirt, and is left in a clingy, white t-shirt, reaching almost to his thighs. He positions himself where my finger is pointing, and casually walks up to my vehicle.

“Jean’s girls, because…” I try to continue, but realize I can’t name a single reason. “His relationships don’t work.”

“His relationships, your car.” Levi smiles. “That makes no sense.”

“Nothing ever made sense between us. We were like that, senseless. And everyone he dated was senseless, too. I was always in the middle of everything,” I go on, observing the way he lunges around the car through my camera lens. “The girls came to me.”

He looks up. “And?”

“Asked for a piece of mind. Sometimes they gave me permission to record them.” I feel my throat going dry. What I’m saying sounds exploitative, but it usually makes complete sense in my head. It’s meant to be a _good_ thing for _greater_ means. “For—for short films and such. Being haunted by desire of authenticity, I took stealthy videos. I like playing around heartbreak, documenting it. Personal struggles are what I specialize in. I think I know how to depict melancholy in a way no one else does. Melancholy, emptiness, sadness, devastation. I understand emotions on a different plane. I know what they _look_ like.”

“Interesting.”

“Get on top of the car, please.”

“What is this emotion you’re trying to capture now?” He asks. “Honesty?”

“Stupidity. Consider this an artistic exercise. Not everything I do has meaning.” I sound rude. “It's a color value test.”

Levi puts his right foot on the nose panel and pushes himself on top. “So,” he continues, lying back in an indefinite manner. “Why do you help Jean with women and don’t consider settling for someone yourself?”

Women, he says it like that, determined. _Females._

 _Because I don’t have the guts to, never had and never will,_ I want to answer. _Because I’m scared. God damn, I'm scared. Rejection is an everlasting cunt in the back of my head. You’re too good and kind to be real. You are, irrationally, a class higher and different from me, Levi, and I don’t like my standards loose, but you’re somehow everything I’ve ever wanted, and I never pictured wanting someone like you._

Blue Light by Mazzy Star plays from the car, and I continue to realize how hopelessly in love I am through the camera, unable to look at him through the lens of reality.

“Someone,” I emptily echo. “Like who?”

Levi’s cat-like manners softly push me into oblivion once again. He rolls on his stomach, soles of his Vans shoes squeaking against the surface, on top of the car still, rests his chin on his hands, and looks at me; not the camera, me. Strands of hair cover the sides of his face. All I can focus on are his large, dark eyes, round lips that kiss the cigarette I gave him just a while ago, fingers covered in sparkling brass rings. They reflect light, playfully so, creating shattered bits of glow that land on his foreign features. Eyes light silver in this pale shine, clouded by curling smoke, he looks too beautiful to be real.

“I think plenty of people want to be with you,” Levi says. “The gist of it is that no one seems to know what you want.”

I pause.

“What I want?”

“Yes, what you want.”

Like _I_ know what I want. You, probably. But you're so out of my reach I could fling myself to Australia and back before I could tell you I'm madly in love and before any of this had the slightest chance of working out.

“Someone unattainable,” I then say. “Always something I can’t get. I have little to no self-esteem, ADD, I—I have incredibly bad commitment issues, a bleak personality, molded different by every other person I spend my time with. No control of my thoughts. I'm really irresponsible, too, and can’t live up to anything I say. In—in short, I’m _undesirable_. Good looks won’t last. No one, ever, in their right or left mind, wants that.”

What he says next leaves a burning imprint on my chest.

“Maybe I want that.”

I finally look over the camera, at Levi. His eyes now shine cloudy and unpredictable, full of contentment of this rhetorical statement he’s put my way. He thinks he’s doing the right thing, this teenage Barbie doll. Consequences, to someone like Levi, they don’t exist. Not conceptually, but on some other plane of consciousness. To some nearby extent he understands my affection towards him, he really does, but has no idea what his words currently do to me, and how hard coping with anything one-sided is. But isn’t _this_ tangible proof he likes me?

My finger fidgets over buttons that softly click in the dark, velvety night. It’s still recording, has been recording everything we speak of.

The fact that he’s the one making the first advance, taking the first step towards me, is more than reassuring that this could be real. But I’m still unsure. I don’t want to misunderstand what he’s saying.

“I don’t think you know what you want,” I say.

 _“You_ don’t know what I want. If you let me have my way, I could show you something—something mutually exclusive. I could show you what it is that you want of yourself. Me, out of everyone.” He breathes in, deep. “I feel like you're afraid of me.”

There is something more to what he’s saying. He’s saying all of this in such a tear-jerking way it reminds me of myself. Reminiscent of how I’m terrified of rejection, like he is right now, an involuntary smile reaches my mouth.

“I’m not afraid of you, Levi. Commitment is what I’m mostly afraid of. It’s caged deep inside of me, buried under so many memories of what was once good and pure in its own way. Everything I grow to love comes to an end, and I refuse to accept that.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way.”

I look down and press a matte button to end the clip. “It relentlessly is.”

* * *

Journal entry:

_I’ve fucked up on a scale so major you could blast me into the Moon and I couldn’t see the end of it from up there. Again I come in the picture with my crippled commitment ideology, my fears, my non-objective viewpoint on everything that I long for. All of this crashes over my head right when Levi is so forthcoming and open. The atmosphere made him vulnerable and I went against the flow of it because I’m full of spite and can’t love myself even as much as admitting to having feelings for him._

_I ruin. My own. Fun._

_I have Christas yoga tapes. It’s three in the morning. I try meditating by using only the instructions on the video tapes, but it’s not working. This is the moment when Sirius and the Sun and the Earth are in a straight line, so I have to align my chakras, but I can’t do that if I haven’t got even a third of a clue on what a chakra is._

The following entry is half-assed and very messy.

_Something happened by four. I think Mazzy Star’s album So Tonight That I Might See took my hand and said: “It’s alright, Eren. Do not fret from love. Look around you. Appreciate what you have. Nothing will be the same in a year.”_

_I felt like shit but kept having gut punch laughter the rest of the morning. I’m a living emotional paradox, I’m the rage against the dying of the light._ _I’m a terrible, torn, played person, afraid of what I crave the most._

_I didn’t really go to bed. I just listened to some music and did quite a bit of crying. Then I remembered I have the whole scene recorded, so I uploaded it to my laptop. Yet another grave mistake. Only god knows how much tears I’m capable of producing. Only la Virgen de Guadalupe above my bed witnessed me cry._

_Why do I have to go against myself? Why can’t I let myself have good things? Why do I feel like I need additional suffering, on top of everything else that boggles my mind? World, as a whole, inflicts enough pain. But I have to go and twist in agony like some salsa dancer, the idiot I am._

* * *

On Saturday morning I wake up to find Levi’s journal open on the kitchen counter. I lunge around it at first, but it seems so conveniently open on a clean page with only a single entry I read it.

_But I dissect you with my eyes in pink toned marble refracted light. In my mind, I am shoving my fingers through soft flesh like dragging through the skin of a rotten peach. I think I was built to destroy, to leave others in devastation, to rip apart skin just enough to burrow myself in._

_You’re doing a great job going against the flow. Refusal and denial are the only two keys you should always carry with you. But for the sole ritual of staying alone, you need to try harder. Outweigh how desirable you are with some quality of yours everyone will hate._

_I am always buying sharper knives. I am some violent creature of the night, I am heaven held captured in your eyes. I’ve always seen the bleaker side of light, never much purpose in life, but, Jesus Christ, I am a god with a knife._

I think about this entry all day.

* * *

_On Monday morning, April 17th,_ my journal entry, again, messily, says, _I receive a call. A call! A buoy showing civilization is still out there, and that the safety of my own house can be left, but only for great deeds. The call was on Washington’s modeling shoot I signed up for months ago. They asked me if I was still up for it—and if I happened to be, I’d shortly receive an e-mail of the dates, locations and hourly wage in each._ _Getting your start in the film industry is not an easy feat if you’re a young artist with a very specific or niche vision, and I went through hell to get a spot in D.C._

 _The soft sound of a work e-mail arriving was like a summery scent I’d missed so dearly. I’ve been spending money like it comes out of my ass. My free time has gotten the same treatment, and mental health, unfortunately, isn’t a straightforward incline on a line graph._ _I think it’s time to go back to workaholic Eren, the Eren who has no idea what a “personal life” is, the Eren everyone loves (on a surface level) and doesn’t ever meet up with for a caramel macchiato and false plans for some birthday party or family outing. God damn, and I’ve grown to love the Eren I am now, as opposed to what I keep writing! I’m so soft and vulnerable, so dainty, so look-oriented, so, all in all, good; suddenly blessed with some extraordinary sense of fashion that makes my best features incredibly pronounced, suddenly into poetry, striving for elegance. I still have my sad spells, but take a look at this: I’m healthy._

 _I called it when I was going on about how I’m just a replica of bits and pieces of people I meet, how everyone molds me into who I am today. Of course it’s like that. I’ve never been any different than that. Everything Levi is_ _grows on me. His text message question of the day was: “Eren, why does Sartre smoke such expensive cigarettes?”_

_I worked a little today. One of my tasks during my parents’ absentness was moving the wood chips from my yard to theirs, for gardening purposes. I wouldn’t have taken the Ford otherwise._

_I soaked up the sun by throwing on a button-down. My afternoon ended with horrible back pain and I couldn’t move the rest of the wood chips. Whether 21 is a respectable age, or my immune system just went to town, I laid on the couch and watched movies until Levi got home from school and his first unofficial day of work._

_We celebrated with a bottle of aged rum I found in a cabinet above the stove. I’m the classic anti-alcohol person; I hate alcohol and normally avoid using it, but live with a "what else is going to kill my narcissistic utterance than waking up with no memory of self as such?" mindset._

_And so I drink like a dishwasher._

* * *

It’s Tuesday. I have to get out of the house early to pick up my car from service. Then, I have a job meeting at nine, and around noon is a scheduled sushi thing with Karen. Today smells productive.

My morning cigarette is surprisingly good today. I sleepily check the grocery list after getting back inside and find a note on the fridge I later tuck in between the pages of my journal.

 _He has dainty lower lashes, hay in his loose hair and pollen all over his nose,_ it says. _It tints his skin pancake yellow. Melon yellow. And each night he tears apart a name, calling himself everything but the light._

_I left money in the pocket of your ochre bomber jacket. Buy milk, brown rice, Parliaments, and check Martin’s for actually good wings. –L_

_Ochre,_ he wrote. That’s just mustard.

I could get used to my grocery list looking like this. Levi is either gone or asleep at this hour, so I eat breakfast alone.

* * *

_Tuesday, April 18 th. I listened to blues music the second I got my car back. Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters are the blues standards I’d grown up on. I wrote down everything I was told when a pasty lady handed me my car keys. _ _“Four to six weeks following your paint job, I recommend you wax your car every three months to protect your new finish. Make sure to use an automotive wax, like Mothers'. It doesn’t contain abrasive cleaning agents, such as silicone.” Thank you. I will not do any of this._

_I wore a t-shirt in this dusty pink color, "millennial" pink, Jean calls it, combined with my mustard bomber jacket and forest green baseball hat. My chunky golden chain. Black jeans, the classic. All of it received strong, surprisingly positive feedback. You wouldn’t catch me dead in that, however._

_Lunch with Karen was mellow. She only asked how Levi was doing and if I needed a break. I went in detail how helpful he’s been, and how much mamá likes him. I didn’t skip out on the part where I said I liked him, too._

_After lunch I found myself bored, so I strolled around the mall like a true liberal, bought jeans identical to those I had on, a t-shirt that cost far too much for my liking, and very begrudgingly stared after fishnet tights on a mannequin, thinking of ways I could lure Levi into wearing them. “It’s for a movie, I swear,” I’d say, swatting at my erection. “This has nothing to do with relieving my self-diagnosed PTSD and bolstering a horrifying sexual experience that led me to, more or less, celibacy. Who do you think I am?”_

_I went to work after that, and got out at 8 PM._

* * *

It’s now been four full days of cohabitation and I’m close to decaying on my living room couch.

Levi is acting different. Sneaking around the house like some burden-filled shadow, he gets home late now, and, I guess, thinks he’s an inconvenience to me for doing so. I’ve been e-mailing back and forth with Joseph instead of meeting up. This is like accounting, but we’re talking about a person. What are Levi’s expenses, is his time schedule somewhat packed, does he help me, does he help himself. I pretend the mélange turtleneck Levi wears tied around his neck doesn’t cost three hundred; it’s all good then, and I have no complaints.

Whatever happened on Friday night seems to be forgotten. Pushed aside, to say the least. We don’t bring it up or refer to it in any way. We don’t really talk that much, either. There’s unresolved tension, however, the leftovers of what he tried to ignite that night. I avoid approaching this. I do seem to be getting better by abandoning my longing stares and longingly staring at accounting papers instead.

When Levi visited that one time, when he went to the sunroom and told me how he used to live in one back in the days of biological parenthood, I imagined their house as some three-story 1940s Spanish villa, hugged by Cuban mahogany trees. His bedroom, the Florida room, it wouldn’t be on the corner like mine is. It would be amidst the south side of the house, integrated, or maybe attached as a separate little parlor. A glazed glass hallway would lead back to the villa. I imagine ivy plants guiding me through this setup, planted leveled, on these staircase-like little pots. And in spring, late spring, they would bloom in soft pastels.

In my Pennsylvanian house, such extraordinary conditions aren’t provided, but my sunroom is uniquely beautiful nonetheless. Levi, of course, chose this room to live in. He accustomed it to his own specific needs. I brought old, silky drapes out of the basement, the color of worn wood, and they were sheer enough to let light break through; it was one of Levi’s specific requests—light. The room itself is always hugged in a golden haze, the atmosphere a little stifling, dust always in the air, visible, persistent. He got my old king bed after we moved it downstairs. I still sleep in the guest room and will this whole summer, thanks to the AC system. My own room doesn’t have it.

Levi’s sleeping garments have been shedding since the night he moved. He could first be seen walking around in sweatpants and a hoodie before bed. The next night, on Saturday, same pants, but a t-shirt. Sunday, just shorts and the same shirt. When I think of adolescent boys, I think lanky. I think acne, bad clothing, taste in music, videogames. Sex drive of a wild rabbit. When I think of Levi, he’s nothing like that. That’s why, to me, the factuality of his age crumbles.

It’s Tuesday night and I’m doing _papá’s_ storage accounting when Levi walks in the kitchen in boxers and a t-shirt. I’m downstairs, in the living room, but I could see his red shirt flash past in the hallway. My stomach drops upon the first glance, and I patiently stare at the numbers in front of me, hoping they’d give me some fruit of wisdom.

“I’m suffering from nightly hunger strikes,” Levi says, kicking at air. His sock flashes in the hallway. “Do we have anything I don’t know of?”

“Check the fridge,” I reply over my papers. “We might still have Karen’s ube.”

Levi opens the fridge, and, after a while of rummaging, concludes: “I think I ate it.”

“The whole thing?”

“The whole thing. I’ve been home all day.”

“Weren’t you at school?” I wouldn’t know. I left early and arrived late. Whatever happened in between is beyond my knowledge.

I hear the fridge being closed. He then slides in the hallway, squatting, a bottle of vanilla protein shake in hand. I ignore the tasty way his thighs fold and lock eyes with every zero staring back at me from the papers, judging me, saying: “Quit staring, you absolute moron, this is not a feeling he’ll reciprocate.”

“No,” he responds.

“Why?”

“I was on a job hunt.”

“And?”

“I work at Panera now.” Levi drinks from the bottle. “And it’s official, _pozdravlyayu menya_. Four days a week, almost right after school. I told Joseph and he said it’s cool I didn’t go to class today. Don’t worry. I told him I’ll need a car.”

“You’re probably going to get Karen’s Mercedes,” I murmur. My dying phone says it’s midnight. The dying lobes of my brain say my sex drive is overheating and I’m in dire lack of sleep. “It’s late. You should go to bed.”

“Are you busy?”

“Barely.”

He stands up straight. “Great. I wanted to talk to you.”

Great. I’ve been living with the "miss me with Friday’s consequences" kind of mindset, but Friday’s consequences are standing in the kitchen hallway, materialized, and I can’t be missed now.

“Me too,” I say, wishing my trip to D.C. takes some pressure off of this conversation. “I won’t be home next week. I have a shoot in Washington.”

“You’re leaving me alone,” he concludes.

“God, no. No. Christa can look after you, if anything.”

“Cool,” Levi drags. “So I’m being left with a babysitter.”

“That’s not what I said.”

Levi walks down the carpeted stairs, socked feet sinking within every step. He keeps shaking the half empty bottle up until the couch, slowly. I follow the movement.

Here he stops, bare shins pressed against the cushions.

I let my eyes climb from his legs to his stomach, and back down. His legs are firm with a chance of beguiling shapeliness that belies how athletic he actually is. Levi takes a miniscule step closer. His shins are now pressed against my legs. I feel heat radiating from him, his skin, his entire lovely being.

I’m far too agitated and sleep-deprived for this kind of unregistered physical closeness, so what he’s doing only means one thing on my watch. God forbid we’re not on the same wave. I’ll move to Alaska if we’re not on the same wave.

“I still want to talk to you.”

I want this to be the Friday conversation, rebooted.

“Talk to me about what?” I ask, pushing my laptop aside.

“What we never finished talking about on Friday.”

I close my eyes.

I know what I want to happen now.

“We don’t have to talk about this,” I say, looking up at him, trying to be strident in my stubborn act of denial. It’s hard when he’s wearing that solid red shirt whose hem ends right about where his junk starts. “There’s nothing to talk about and I wouldn’t know where to start if there was.”

Levi seems to think for a second. “Yeah,” he says. “I didn’t think talking would suffice, either.”

_Oh Dios mío. Dios mío, quiero follarte._

I know what I want to happen. I want very specific, very, very intimate things to happen. If I weren’t so emotionally restrained, I’d fuck him raw on the kitchen island until he understands how I feel. He doesn’t understand yet. He thinks I don’t like him _like that._ I wish I could show him all of it; it’s the only way I can speak about being in love, and it’s a conversation with no words.

“No,” I respond. “No, talking won’t suffice, I don’t think it will.”

This is the part of my life where I’m fed up with something _so much_ I make such abrupt and inane choices, that, in most cases, lead me to unimaginable regret and sorrow. I don’t want to think, ever, and I don’t want consequences, ever, but bouncing off one physically limiting barrier after another has exhausted me to a point I’m unable to resist anything, or anyone, _or_ Levi; Levi the most.

And so I tiredly pat on my thighs, tight jean fabric stretched over them, as a motif to sit down on my lap.

To my ever-growing fear, Levi does.

Hi, I have sawdust for brain cells and you’re watching Disney Channel.

With easy, fluid movements he first slides his right leg across my thighs, knee sinking in the olive cushion of the couch. A secure hand finds its way to my shoulder to balance his weight until I finally feel him flush with me, tight, warm, secure, so close I can smell his favorite cologne and soft vanilla exhale mixed with tobacco and its trademark bitterness. My heart clenches. My stomach does, too. I sit relaxed, but tense, in love, but so, so scared.

I avert my gaze. The hand on my shoulder slides up to my neck, joined by the other. Upon this, I finally dare to look at him.

Gorgeous. Graceful. Virile.

Seeing him so close feels special; like the first time we met. Light brown freckles are dusted all along the bridge of his nose, a beauty mark pecked just underneath his left eye. Eyes, bright, awake, curious, meet mine. My expression jerks from a lovesick writer’s painful mask to someone who’s found endless bliss. The room’s soft light shows the texture of his skin, small scarring creases, barely visible shadow of a moustache he said he wanted to grow.

Levi leans in, but not to kiss me; he leans in to breathe against my jaw, long lashes tickling my cheek, his stomach against my chest. My hands, instinctively on his sides, now slide lower, movements guided by his slim figure and continuously narrowing waist. His hips are the only faulty bump. I run my thumbs along his hipbones and let out a weak sigh: my white flag. I abandon the war within myself.

Whatever happens, happens. Like wise men say, _me vale madre._

This enigmatic boy, birthed by some obsolete being, lean and howlite pale in flesh, absolutely ethereal. His breath washes over my ear, soft, wet lips blindly and innocently press at my jawline, fingers caught up in my curly hair, legs tremble against both mine in excitement, strain, and deeply buried lust. My lust is as buried as a handful of sand thrown over the butt of a cigarette. I’m continuously lured in by his smell and feeling of closeness. My suddenly nervous hands are dripping wet with curiosity, moving up and down Levi’s firm thighs without any purpose other than to show him how _wanted_ he is.

“Don’t hate me,” he whispers.

“I don’t,” I softly whisper back, staring up at him through heavy eyelids. “No, I don’t. I can’t.”

Levi presses his forehead against my cheek and just repeats the same thing, now silent. I swallow dry. I’m too overwhelmed, so I give in and take a light hold on him by the side of his neck; possessive, but loving.

“I can’t explain what is it that I feel,” I silently try, watching his eyelids tremble within every word I say. My thumb finds his lip, runs across it, puffy skin against my rough palm. “It’s some symbolic attraction I can’t get over. I—I _crave_ you, somehow, in some way. In every way. You in your entirety, as you are. I've been thinking about letting you know how I feel for—ever since I first saw you. I was compelled. You lured me in. It's been—it's been hard to keep to myself.”

His chest rises and falls irregularly, in a quicker pace, eyes shine feverish from the words I speak.

"It tore me apart when I fought through days thinking you were less than uninterested. I thought you liked me, and then I was sure we were nothing more than friends."

"Mixed signals?" Levi murmurs. "Yeah, there were plenty. Friday put me off. I was scared to approach you the way I wanted to."

"No one ever told you you couldn't."

"I never thought you'd want me like that. Yours."

Fuck. That sounds so good coming out of his mouth. The whole situation, as overplayed as it sounds, doesn't feel real. 

“I _really_ want you mine,” I tastefully say, my voice silent like a loose vowel. “And I want you to know that I like you very, very much.”

My laptop softly buzzes next to us like an undisrupted beehive. Atmospheric sizzling in the fireplace creates a soft, silent symphony. The flames reflect in his blackcurrant-like eyes that map my face inch by inch.

“All this week I’ve been thinking I finally found the one whom my soul loves,” Levi whispers. “I just wish you wouldn’t turn away from me.”

Simply, effortlessly, he makes my heart still.

I know I have to say it, now. And I know it's been twenty days, and I know he's seventeen, and I wish I'd known the sentence that comes for being involved with a minor, but for once in my life I'll listen to my heart.

“I would never turn away from you,” I say in one breath. “I think—I think I’m in love with you.”

He kisses me. Kisses me in a way I’m not used to being kissed, his mouth soft, loving and wet. His tongue is sweet and slightly, slightly cold. It’s the milk, the ting of vanilla that adds incredible value and saturation to it, the immeasurable depth of a first kiss. There’s beauty in what I feel blooming in my stomach, and there’s undeniably going to be beauty in my tears when I later regret letting this happen. I sigh, all pressure gone from my heart, and move my lips against his as slowly as I can; I savor the moment.

Levi pulls off me when my hand falls from his neck to his lap. The just occurred kiss still lingers between us as we take our time to look at each other, shocked we let ourselves afford such luxurious things, suddenly dawned upon that what each of us feels is strongly mutual. Having my hands on him is a mesmerizing luxury. The richest man on the world couldn’t feel the same swimming in all his boring, materialistic belongings as I do now, with Levi in my arms, like he’s the only thing that matters, like I could buy anything with this kind of money.

He dips again, now kisses me fucking _senseless_ , and my hand grips his neck just a bit harder. Levi moans, his lips parted against mine, and I feel his teeth graze my tongue. I want more of him, and I want him closer, and I want him _mine,_ and there is nothing else I could ever ask for than to be kissed by someone who knows how to kiss like that. Levi's kisses are slow, deep, they make my heart pound at my sternum and order the blood flow around. Jeans aren't a smart choice, I realize, when he presses his ass down on me, and I moan like some slut from film noir. 

The cold bottle of protein milk rolls off from his lap to mine, and slides down to the crevice of the couch, touching my bare hip midway. My jeans graze my skin under Levi’s weight, but I can’t feel bad in this state of tranquility. Eyes locked with his, I take the loose edge of his shirt and pull it up, ever so slightly, indicating I want it off; partly because I'm beyond turned on, but mostly because I want access to every inch of him. I want sloppy bruises and a whole flower bouquet of bites on his pretty, thick neck.

Levi hesitates. Then, slowly, rolls his hips against my stomach, and closes his eyes. His hands slide on top of mine, securely guiding the pace he wants to be undressed in. I excitedly hold my breath, swallowing every single inch slowly revealed.

My excitement then wallows down at a pink tail of a burn that begins above his round hipbone, and every stacked fantasy and intention topples to the living room's carpeted floor.

The scar tissue spreads wider the higher Levi makes me pull the shirt. I was awaiting pristine, impeccable beauty, having forgotten he’s a real person, not spared of flaws or insecurities of any kind. His uneven collarbones seem even more crooked now, in the dancing light of the fireplace and blue reflection of my laptop’s awaiting screen.

Levi pulls the shirt off by the hem, and I see the full picture. My first instinct is to look away, but interest takes over within a second.

Every inch of skin on his scarred right shoulder is blackwork, except for an angrily gazing, slit-pupil eye of a dragon. It’s yellow. The black ink fades out into scales, blended swirls and curls that look like smoke. I then conclude the backdrop of Levi’s shoulder’s blackwork is supposed to represent water; waves. Waves, like the painting by Hokusai. The body of the dragon is imprinted where the scarring has eaten Levi’s skin up the most. The burn takes an almost convenient turn on the waistline. Only a small segment of the overall smooth curve of his side is scarred, giving his body more texture.

I run my finger from the tail up, up to his waist, and my fingertips catch more damaged skin towards his spine. The tail is an angry vivid pink, upwards mellowed into a splotchy shade still darker than his skin tone. Outer edges have gone smooth, shiny, pale with time. These are a milky white and made of waxy skin that differs from the rest of his pale complexion. The scar stretches as he grows.

If this is the birthday incident, the mark of the day he was taken from his family, I see why he’s appalled by it.

His hands are behind his back. They look tied, restrained by some imagined force, and his burnt chest is mine to observe, despite how much he hates being out in the open.

“Stretch marks don’t beat this, do they,” Levi murmurs, having caught my gaze. "Look at you. You look like you'd wish you never had to touch me again."

 _It’s authentic beauty,_ I want to say. _Scars are souvenirs you never lose. Scars are supposed to make you look more experienced, they’re supposed to be marks that show timestamps of your life and tie in the trauma you’ve lived through to get where you are. You can forgive yourself now. Don’t be ashamed of this. Don’t think you lose value in my eyes. I don’t like you any less._

“This doesn’t change how I feel.” My finger finds its way back to the dragon’s tail. “I told you I wanted everything you are.”

Levi shakes his head. “You wouldn't understand.”

"Then explain."

"I can't. It's a nightmare to talk about."

Some are repulsed by scars. They can be a burden in American culture where the norm is to have a symmetrical, pure body and face. I don’t strive for perfection, in body or mind. It’s not something I’m ever going to achieve. Some do. I wonder what it’s about, that drive for perfection.

Despite the burns from his childhood years, he was still handsome to me. Underneath that damaged skin was the bone structure of a god, and his eyes were the sterling silver of _la_ _Virgen de Guadalupe_ above my bed.

“Maybe I wouldn't understand,” I say, and lean in to kiss his ragged skin. "But let it be my nightmare, too."

* * *

I woke at change past seven with a restlessness that felt tranquil.

Last night’s kisses had left my lips swollen, fuller than they normally are. I taste nothing like myself. Upon the glimpse I caught in the mirror, my neck is finely bruised, and I know Levi's is, too.

To kill time while smoking by the guest room’s window, I put on a record of Bauhaus. The swelling music soothes me. I want, more than anything, to lose myself, to disappear into a perfect world where all is orderly and beautiful. My world, as of now, _is_ orderly and beautiful, but I haven’t come to terms with it just yet. I’ll let music be the fake push to make me a believer, until the eternal bliss of love washes over me and I realize exactly how lucky I am to have him.

"I have him," I whisper to myself, to make sure the confession last night really happened, and watch the early traffic, drawing on my cigarette.

Someone takes a right on our street and floors it after they pass my house. Because the windows are open, the car purrs synthetically and I can clearly hear Thundercat, I know it’s Garrett. My suspicion is then confirmed when I lean over the windowsill. Garrett’s mom is on the front porch, smoking. She’s wearing a frilly nightgown and what appears to be a woolen jacket. We’re friends, Garrett and I. They’re the only black family on our street. Similar hues blend well.

My plans for the day don’t include anything other than daydreaming of Levi and church in the evening. Wednesday mornings are adored for a reason. The local Greencastle radio station plays an hour of seriously rare, but essential music chart called Vintage Vintage. The host for this, the prior morning greeting and interviews with college students later on is my high school friend, Reiner.

I stop the Bauhaus vinyl only a while later and turn on the radio. Streams of advertisements come first, and I weigh in for another cigarette. I’m running low today. Sheetz will have to do.

I only manage one slow, nearly pornographic pull on my cigarette when the synth intro to Vintage Vintage hits, and Reiner’s TV spokesperson voice fills the room.

**“Good morning, Greencastle. It’s Wednesday, April 19 th, the sun is coming out and about with a dazzling sixty degrees, promising a climb to eighty by noon. Today is a good day for the hike you’ve been putting off weekly, blame on the frost and spring laziness. Pack tea and Clif bars for your family and friends, and get your rear in gear, ladies in gentlemen, because Greencastle is hitting eighty for the first time this year.”**

The horizon is striped magenta and orange. I close my eyes at the soft light, smile at the breeze. It's light, like a feather.

I think about last night.

**“Our team advises you to avoid 81 this morning. 81, dear Greencastle citizens, is the impending doom of Pennsylvania. Just last week Greencastle Police Department monitored over fifteen illegal freeway races, called highway battles, on luck-spared 81. Race cars are blooming all across the country as the newest college graduate gift trend. We'll be looking at this today—join us in an hour to hear an exclusive chitchat with the recent 81 star, and my childhood friend, Bert Hoover."**

Bert is a race driver now? Last I recall hearing of Bert he was into genetic engineering or something like that.

**"For more recent news, several early reports claim our infamous band of firecrackers is back again, this time stepping over rings of fire in Cirque du Soleil, and going straight to what can now be deemed as second-degree arson.”**

I look over my shoulder, at the radio.

 **“First sightings of the tragedy have been reported at six thirty,”** Reiner reads. **“More on fire than it ever has been is the Wallace farm, owned by Gretel Wallace, race horse breeder and former competitive horseback riding champion. We haven’t received any news on the wellbeing of Gretel and her family, but do wish to spread awareness all nearby neighbors should stay cautious in case the fire spreads through the forest. Firefighters are at work. Our depot hasn’t been this busy in centuries.”**

My heart pounds like it’s about to crawl out of my chest.

The Wallace family, they live seven miles away. That’s the closest to me an active fire has been.

I take my journal, a pen and former notes on the outlines of the documentary and haphazardly stuff everything in my Wolf Creek backpack. All of my immediate equipment is in the car, but I grab the Polaroid from above my desk and sling it on my neck. Clothes don’t matter; I put on whatever comes first, all black, pull on my hi-top Vans and rush down the stairs, hoping my Polaroid has enough film and that I have enough time to catch everyone and everything on the scene.

Words can’t explain the way I feel. Nothing can explain the way I feel. My insides shake in anticipation to at least halfheartedly express it through film.

What's worse, I’m starting to believe in my butterfly effect theory. The sincere happiness I felt last night is now swept away like dust in the wind. Everything good that happens to me is quickly canceled out by some awful fucking tragedy.

Before heading out, I leave a note on the kitchen table.

 _Sorry, Levi,_ it reads. _I know you said you wanted to spend the morning together, and I know every excuse sounds mundane at this hour, but I can’t miss out on this material, I'm so sorry. There's a fire on Hill Road, the Wallace farm. Don’t come. I’m fine, I'll be fine. Please don’t hate me for chasing the case either. I’ll be back as soon as it settles; fingers crossed it’s before you leave, but don't wait for me in case you have to go. I’ll make up for this. You can have my cigarettes; they’re in my room, on the windowsill. Take care. I love you. –E_


	5. Caramel (Fifth Circle)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonding-centric. The rating goes up with this one. Use Google translate for the parts you don't understand. Adding them in brackets felt like killing the flow/mood. Sorry, mobile users!
> 
> [Gazastrippin](https://gazastrippin.tumblr.com) on Tumblr.
> 
> [Playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/hentaivert/playlist/2rND5iE0iUjELcUuuIYn1o) here.

If anyone told the senior Jaegers their son just shot past Salem Ridge’s community church in his polished orange Impala, flooring it to no avail, they’d share a glance and say, “Dear, our Eren would never do that.”

Thing is—and make sure they never find out—their Eren _is_ doing that.

My hands are shaking so bad I can barely keep them on the wheel, my teeth clenched so tight it hurts. Beads of sweat cover my nose. My glasses keep sliding lower. I wipe my nose off in the sleeve of my old Rush t-shirt, not even given enough time to grab a warmer jacket, not to mention getting contacts in.

The Impala roars, protesting against the speed I’m forcing it to go in. I haven’t taken the car out for a run like this since receiving her on my graduation. To gain lost time, I weigh in for the quickest way to the Wallace farm. It’s a hilly, abandoned road that once led to a greenfield factory and two sawmills that are dubiously active up to this day. No one takes the country roads at this early and barely drive here any other time of the day, so I recklessly speed until the first crossroads that lead to the rocky region. I turn left off the road I was just on and get past a row of identical white houses, picket fences, little witch hazel shrubs behind them. At the sight of the farmlands and distant village where the Wallaces live, I’m forced to stop the car.

I lean closer to the wheel so the window frame of the car doesn’t shield the view.

My mouth falls agape.

Two, three pillars of thick, black smoke spread in the glowing morning sky like ink swirls on wet paper. They form an almost corporeal barrier between the Wallaces and the rest of the nearby families, rising in thick rolls. A sheer grey drowns the warmth of the early morning light, sucking out all color the horizon is trying to paint. The mountain riff stands sturdy and dark miles away, the only unmovable force of this scenery, framing the area to protect the outside world. Rare birch trees and a thick row of barely budding lilac bushes hide the burning farm, revealing only short, sharp flashes of flames from behind the higher branches, and an intimidating red glow, hellish in its essence. The air is distorted from the curling heat.

How can this be “the wrongdoing of downtown kids” and when did I ever believe that? Am I really that much of an imbecile?

I roll my windows down. Distant sirens, both of the police and the firefighters, they drill in my ears like daily church bells from across the road.

Fox Academy’s Choking on Flowers plays from my car. I helplessly slide back in the seat.

The sight is eerily beautiful in the predawn light.

I’ve never seen something so out of place and simultaneously completing as a farmhouse on fire in Greencastle, Pennsylvania. Greencastle area, so generally out of place in this world, is made just for this. Shame stabs at the back of my head for thinking that way, but all these dated farmhouses from 1980, empty factories, roads leading nowhere, slum apartments, heroin usage, prairie-like fields, the dry summers, the Hagerstown brothel, the bland feeling of _nothingness_ —there’s nothing more fitting than crime as intricate as arson. Mass shootings? There are no masses to shoot. Terrorism? For what reason, here, in the countryside?

Taxation? Yeah, we can talk about that.

An odd, stinging smell reaches my nose through the window and lazy AC system; the air faintly reeks of burning chemicals and wood, a panic-inducing stench that chews into clothes and is impossible to wash days on end. I get out of the car and open up the back to get my equipment. For the sake of diverse cinematography, a shot from afar is necessary, to really show the magnitude of the fire; to have comparable measures of all material I hope to shoot in the future, unless they catch the people behind this. I don’t bother with the tripod being this short on time, and just stack my camera on top of my shoulder, adjusting the light settings as I do so.

The embers hungrily flicker as they eat through the silhouettes of the birch trees. Allowing myself only as much as two minutes for this scene, I get back in the car and throw the camera to the side. My seatbelt, unfastened, jingles by my waist.

I sit still for a while.

“Fuck,” I breathily say, to myself.

There’s nothing I could do to help cease the fire. I put my meek trust in everyone else, the salvageable loser I am, and sit in my vintage car like I’d done god’s work. Oh, fuck this, here I go, guilt tripping myself for something I have no power over. The only way anyone can benefit from me is if I get enough footage; maybe I could work as a nightcrawler and sell my tapes to the news. That used to be my dream ever since I recorded the crow voring that roadkill. Essentially, what I want out of this is to come across some revelation. I want answers to questions I haven’t yet asked. I want a documentary that is thorough. I feel like, if I dig deeper into this, if I sacrifice my free time, I could get ahead of everyone else.

The closer I get to the scene, the harsher gets this ungodly smell. My heart is pounding. Air whips at my ears with the window still open, my Impala pushed to her limit. By the rare birch grove, I’m forced to slow down. Up to five policemen march along the dusty road leading to the farm, two of them stand still by the turn. The air, down here, is thick, stifling, toxic. My hand involuntarily covers the lower half of my face. It gets harder to breathe; can’t tell if it’s the excitement or what’s in the air.

An officer waves at me. I stop the car before him, and observe the way he walks. His face is dimly lit, rather bearded, and I conclude I don’t know this man, at least not by appearance. My hand falls from my face to avoid muffled speech.

“Morning. What brings you here?”

“Good morning, officer,” I quickly greet, leaning out the window. “I—I heard about the Wallace farm on the radio. What does it look like?”

“Not good. I must mention you’re not supposed to enter the site, sir,” the officer says, tilting his hat. He also looks at my car, almost disdainful. “This isn’t a vintage car auction, this is private territory.”

“I’m sorry, but I know these people. I want to see what’s going on.”

“You’re entering a potential crime scene, sir.”

“I _know_ these people,” I breathlessly say. Panic is quite rapidly creeping up as I begin to realize I might not get in. “I know the Wallace family! Is the sheriff here? Is officer Theodore Claire here? Let me talk to them, please. They know me. They know why I’m here. My name is Eren Jaeger, J-A-E—”

He doesn’t budge. “Sir, officer Claire is at the scene. This is an emergency. We’re working on ceasing the fire. I’ll ask you to, please, not cause unnecessary traffic and crowding.”

_Hijo de tu puta madre!_

A surge of heat flows through me. I suddenly want to rip his licensed police officer mug off, or drive over him and his cheap ass “this isn’t vintage car auction” shit. His high cheekbones, dark, slanted eyes and accent strike me as Hispanic to some degree. I wouldn’t dare cursing under my breath this time, like I do with most others.

“I’m calling the sheriff, then,” I let the policeman know as I pull out my phone, knowing all well Joseph must be on a hotline right now, and that my chances of getting a hold on him are slim. I only manage to get to the contact list before realizing this.

I start typing a text message.

With the corner of my eye I see someone jogging towards the car, and turn my head. _Teddy_. Teddy, with all his fat rolls and barely fitting shirt, buttons shrieking from applied pressure, he’s jogging towards my car. I’ve never been this happy seeing Ted as I am now, my god, you trust me good on this.

“That’s officer Claire!” I can’t refrain myself from shouting and pointing at him with my phone in hand. The other officer turns. “That’s Ted, he knows I’m a local.”

“Eren—” Ted is breathless by the time he gets to the car. “Eren, what—what is y’all _doing_ here?”

I look at him _meaningfully_. I look at him, thinking: “Ted, this guy wants me gone. You’re high rank. Please, bust me out of this.” The other officer stands still; surely in doubt. Ted breathes heavy for a few spare seconds, still regaining strength from the run, and then somewhat catches my drift.

“Marcel, lemme speak to him,” he says to the bearded officer. That son of a gun finally backs away from my _vintage auction_ car, and I feel like there’s more air to breathe with him gone.

“Teddy, my guy, I need you to let me in,” I immediately whisper, leaning close to him. “I’ve got all my equipment in the back. I _need_ the footage.”

“What, you still makin’ that movie?” Ted asks. “There’s not that hell lot of crap goin’ on. The Wallace fire is as big as it’s gonna get, you trust me on this. After they spew this all over the news, the case is open and everyone’s jumpin’ in.”

“Teddy, I _need_ to get in. Please. Please, it’s not just for the sake of the documentary, it’s—” My voice cracks in desperation. “Is—is anyone dead?”

He’s silent for a minute.

“Just the horses,” he sadly drags. “Poor animals. ‘er cows are toast. The Wallaces ain’t even been home when the fire set, so everyone knows it’s those kids again.”

“Ted, are you sure?”

“’Bout what?”

“That _kids_ are doing this?” I ask. “Kids—kids. Joseph said it’s the wrongdoing of downtown kids. _Children_. This is too major for even a group of twelve-year-olds.”

Teddy holds my stare. With a grunt, he leans down, closer to my open window. His breath smells like strong gas station coffee and Dollar Tree Thin Mints.

“Lemme tell ya somethin’, Eren,” he says, eyes darting from the camera next to me to the white leather salon. “These ain’t no kids. Ain’t no fool that doesn’t know. I know what a kid do. A kid burns tires in a car graveyard. A kid pours acetone on his momma’s junk mail to incite the flame by inches. A kid does matchbox tricks and pretends they smokin’ rolled corn leaves in fall. But no kid lights a house on fire like the Wallaces got done, ain’t no kid treat people this mean.”

“So you think it’s someone else?”

“I think Joseph’s a fool for going on broadcast.”

“Because?”

“Because all them copycats thinkin’ they can be somethin’ if they see someone else doin’ it. Joseph spat bullcrap for hours on them interviews saying it’s just them kids. He din’ even know who done all that and keeps chantin’, kids, kids, kids. That brothel, dear Mary, got the same treatment, and look at it now. Shit’s in full bloom, I’m tellin’ ya.” He pauses, looking down. “Now everyone can hide behind the picture of a kid, is what I’m sayin’. Now you have everyone thinkin’ they can run around Christ’s ear and light ass on fire.”

“It could be one person,” I rhetorically guess.

“Could be. Could be a dozen. Ain’t I bright like that, like you. The police department will shit theyselves quicker than solving this problem, you listen to me, son. If we got bright eyes, fresh look, some real Holmes here, we’d have the scapegoat hung over the fire station.”

I let it sink in.

Ted thinks Joseph going live and speaking of the issue cultivated the idea that anyone could do this. That, maybe, something like this going semi-viral awakened the napping pyromaniacs, and the case is on not one, but several people. Just like David Fincher’s Zodiac—the Zodiac killer toyed with authorities, and there was a brief period of confusion when they though someone else was posing as the man—and the real Zodiac was preoccupied with executing his imagery.

I can’t believe I never thought of that before. What I’m also finding hard to believe is that Ted’s the one to break this.

“Fuck,” is the only thing I manage to say.

“Fuck to the border and back, ya right,” Teddy gloomily says. “I’ll let you in. Marcel’s just scared outta his pants ‘cause his house is nearby. Y’all can record with my permission, you and sheriff’s little nephew. Joseph’s running around like the halfwit he is, not even on the scene, the bastard. He prolly wouldn’t let ya. Ethics.”

“Ted…” I begin, wishing I could thank him, but he waves a hand in front of my face.

“Go. Not much left to burn.” And then he nudges my arm. “Hey, at least you can see the moon now that the barn’s gone.”

I just nod and sit back. Teddy waves at the rest of the men, gesturing to back off from the road. I start up the car again and slowly roll along the birch grove. When I pass Marcel, I respectfully tilt my head. My window is still open, and the smell of smoke is so heavy I cough.

I hear someone crying, hysterically, and my legs turn stiff.

Not that I have a drop of shame, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to just stand there and record it all. I’m allowed to, the locals know me and what I do for a living, and I have Ted’s permission, but I feel like an outsider, like an intruder, and complimentary very, very guilty profiting off of someone else’s tragedy. But it’s for the _greater good_ , or so I like to think.

Behind the grove and lilac bushes, across the meadow, is the burning farmhouse.

I become tranquil at the sight.

A monster, hellish red, the fire gnaws at every corner, every pipe, every window frame. I almost run off road while staring, so I just stop the car, eyes glued to the burning house. It glows in a florescent orange border, being attacked viciously by flames wiping all of what it once was. The fire is so bright it almost hurts my eyes.

The entire right wing of the building is ablaze, orange flames licking the once scarlet painted walls and visible furniture like an overzealous dog. Blackened, powdery ash dances amidst the inferno, thrown up by currents of hot air from where flames continue to eat into anything still relatively unscathed. The fire takes on the appearance of a flock of vermilion birds, fanning out and beating the sky with fiery wings.

It’s a horrible site. It’s as if all of the house's love was burning into a pandemonium of flames.

I helplessly watch as the embers begin to spread to the apple and cherry trees around the house, and feel truly petrified for the first time in my life. The fire begins to gnaw on wood and leaves alike, like one great furnace. A sea of flames spreads out across the green expanse, engulfing the tall trees like the spring tide rolling in.

Someone incoherently yells. “Get out of the way,” they then say. It takes a moment to realize I’m the one being referred to. I hit the pedal with little delay and drive across the mown field, off-road, where other cars are parked and people are sitting on the ground, buried in plaid blankets. There’s a total of two fire brigade trucks surrounding the house; one is working on the nearly gone farmhouse, while the other soaps down the nearby barn to which the fire had spread.

I take a picture with the Polaroid and leave the photo to develop in the backseat. Before anyone else walks up to me and says anything, I get out, video camera slung over my shoulder, tripod like a sword, resting on the nape of my neck.

The smell of wood smoke drifts through the air like incense.

I set up the camera facing the narrow gap between the two burning objects with immaculate perfection. Both buildings are in the shot. The flames, hissing, spitting pale yellow shades, flicker wildly on the farmhouse’s wooden walls, tentatively reaching out to embrace the barn rooftop next to it. The heat, appearing to disrespect normal laws of nature, crushes down on the ground, as well as the thick, acrid smoke. Even from here, my vantage point a safe distance away, I can hear the cries of panicked family members.

My hands are still shaking.

I move around a couple of times, switching distance and angle. I feel my shirt cling to my back. It’s scorching hot. The siding on the house next to the one on fire, it's thirty yards away and melting.

I’d been on the scene for ten minutes at most when I hear police sirens again. How disastrous and simultaneously stirring this incident must be for the entire police department to throw a meeting at the Wallaces. Speaking of, I haven’t seen a single Wallace.

It soon becomes apparent the sirens belong to Joseph’s Dodge. I stagger back to my tripod and move it away from the road, accidentally ending the clip with my left shoulder. Joseph drives in my direction, probably having noticed my car, and parks right next to it, rear facing the field, and front—the house.

I run my hands through my hair and walk to his car, carrying my equipment along. Only a few feet away from the Dodge do I realize he has a passenger.

I almost drop the camera.

Sitting as close to the door as possible, arms straight, hands on his knees, Levi is staring up at the house, skin shiny from sweat. It’s reflecting the orange blaze from the fire behind me. It shines in his eyes, just like it shone in his eyes yesterday, from the fireplace, when I bared my soul to him. Levi’s wearing my shirt; my old, blue DIIV shirt. My head dulls. He’s white as chalk, eyes and mouth frozen in an expression of stunned surprise. His lips are slightly parted, eyebrows raised in an almost satisfied manner, eyes large; he looks at the fire like he looks at _me_ , in awe, in complete tranquility.

Joseph gets out of the car, leaving Levi in it. I first choose not to move, not until he notices me, but fueled by my anger against his decision to take Levi along, I stalk across the road, tripod raised at a dangerously high point; like a baseball player, I approach his police car. “Joseph!”

He turns, pulling on his badge-covered jacket. A short glance at me is enough to understand what pit of fury I’m crawling out of.

“You alright?” He asks, stepping towards me.

“What are you _doing?”_ I hiss more than whisper, indirectly nodding my head in Levi’s direction. “Why is he with you?”

“I should be asking you that.”

I frown.

Joseph plants his hands on his hips. He looks a bit like Jim Hopper, that guy, with his five o’clock shadow. “Levi called and said you’d left a note saying there was a fire nearby.”

I nod.

“He also mentioned you wrote he shouldn’t come; smart of you to do so. Considerate. You refused to take him with you. So he turned to me, then, and asked if I could drive him here.”

 _“He_ asked you to drive him here?” This doesn’t make fucking sense. Taken his trauma is bad, he’d flee fire like the plague. “I thought you said he’s terrified of…all that. Fires.”

We stare at each other until he tiredly sighs and shakes his head. His badges reflect the fire, just like Levi’s eyes do.

“Eren, you can’t leave him alone when something like this is happening,” Joseph slowly says. “He wasn’t well when I arrived.”

My heart dips downwards from the guilt weight my subconscious just laid out.

“What was he doing?” I weakly ask.

“Crying.”

“Oh, god.”

“He screamed at me. Eren, see, he has these… Levi gets these manic episodes. Rarely, very rarely.” Joseph rubs his cheek. The sound of stubble grazing against his rough palm is weirdly in sync with the crackling fire behind. “We all believe that’s the psychological imprint the fire on his birthday left. He was probably worried you left by yourself, and the site is rather nearby, too. That must’ve put the fear of god into him. I wish I’d had the guts to tell you that when you were still enthusiastic about living together.”

“Joseph, no, it’s alright. It’s all good.”

“I figured his roommates didn’t leave just because,” he somberly says. “All this _bullshit_ keeps happening all across town ever since Levi arrived, it’s got to be hard. I never thought I would feel this sorry for him. I’m afraid the panicking won’t get any better if the arson doesn’t cease. I thought—I thought I could help him. And since he now so voluntarily wanted to come…”

“I had a talk with Teddy,” I interrupt, staring downwards to avoid Joseph’s fatherly gaze. “About who’s doing this, and why.”

The sheriff watches me sway the tripod. It hits my quads, bounces away, hits my hamstrings and swings back to the front.

“I thought that’s been established,” he says.

“No,” I sternly reply. “No. The fire’s no accident, the entire estate knows that. And by now, I think, everyone understands that some high school pricks aren’t capable of this. I think you’ll slowly get to see the real gruesome outcome of showcasing everything you know on live TV.”

As an echo to the last word I say, the farmhouse finally topples over as the walls give way. I turn around. The flames flare up in a harsh shade of white, uselessly reaching up to try and tear down the clouds before falling back down in a series of snaps and cracklings. The wind flares up as well, carrying short bursts of fire from the ruins to unscathed trees, bushes, outside furniture. Benches burn, fall over, the sight disappointing in it’s nature. The contrast between a plaited chair and burning barn just feet away is comical.

I turn back to Joseph. He blankly stares at the burning remains of the house.

“I’m going to talk to Levi,” I say, and walk past him.

Levi hasn’t moved an inch. It’s like he’s transfixed.

I lightly knock on the window, not to frustrate or scare him, and stand still. Levi doesn’t react. His eyelids droop a little, now settling on the dashboard of the Dodge, like taking baby steps towards being able to look at me. As of now, his eyes are as grey as the ash in the dying fire in front. Empty, vacant, stripped of any sign of empathy.

I knock again.

Levi leisurely turns his head, leaning against the headrest, and looks at me.

He looks high. Indescribably high off on something. Pupils blown out, lower lip pink, full, wet; hair in disarray. Instead of being pulled behind his ears, it falls in loose waves all over his face. The intense feeling in his relaxed features doesn’t give away what he’s thinking of, but I do note the glazing over his eyes. They glisten, cold and metallic, rivaling the most excellent of his expensive silver jewelry.

Levi presses a button and the glass separating us slowly slides down.

Only then I realize he’s crying.

* * *

Hours later it settles. The charred remains of the Wallace farmhouse stands like a grotesque skeleton in the heavy afternoon light, and everyone but us two has left. Fog came late in the morning, stirring in with the last smoking remains of both buildings that are no longer there. The day, as Reiner promised, is warm, but not sunny. It’s more stifling than refreshing, though I’d normally feel good in this kind of weather, on a day that has all the might to make me barely functional. I end up blaming how I feel on what happened earlier.

We’re sitting in my car, Levi and I, in silence, and I’m holding his hand. It’s been like this since I asked him to get out of the Dodge. I told Joseph I’m not letting Levi go to school today, and I called in in his stead to say he might not be at work, either. His manager was surprisingly supportive.

“You alright?” I silently ask. My thumb brushes the heel of his palm, and he responds with a light squeeze, but doesn’t say anything.

“No,” he then says, finally, but just as silent.

I wanted this to be our day. I wanted to spend the morning with him, in his bed, maybe, lit by the playful sun. Tied in his light bed sheets, my nose against his warm skin, exchanging soft words and translucent kisses. I wanted this to be different. I wanted to open up. Let him in.

There’s no clarity on how he feels until he finally speaks up.

“I’m just thinking how—I’m thinking how I’ve wasted so much time becoming nothing,” Levi begins, voice low, every word stretched out. “How I’m still afraid of being stagnant. Of settling. Of fire. I’ve tried nothing and I’m out of ideas.”

I turn my head towards him, and we look at each other. To say he looks like he’s burning alive is an understatement. My eyes convey how sorry I am, for this and for everything he has to deal with and witness; his are only milk and water. He’s looking through me, wilting in his unspoken pain. Dark eyebrows low, the line of his mouth crooked in some thoughtful spell.

“It’s soon a month here,” Levi continues. “I’ve wasted a month staying the same doggerel, ungodly creature I always was. I don’t get how I put so much faith in myself. I don’t get _why_ I did that, taken I never hope for the best, or hope for anything. I was—I was hoping for a change. I wanted to change. I’m…so fucking disappointed.”

“Levi, it takes time to adjust and pull yourself together.”

“It shouldn’t take that long.” His voice cracks. “I don’t get it. The different surroundings, people, school, it should’ve all been a kickstart. It just blows my mind to acknowledge all my aspirations and be unable to fulfill any of them.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. I know how that feels. “You’re not looking at the full picture, _mi amor._ I know what I’m saying will fly over your head, but listen to me, please. There isn’t a time chart on how long certain things take. There is no timeframe for anything. You can’t set unrealistic goals on recovery, whatever recovery it is. Mental health, unfortunately, isn’t a straightforward incline on a line graph,” I quote my journal. “You’ll rebound, many times, even if there are people who try to help you, and you’ll never completely heal. The remnants of what once was full-blown mental illness, it just—it doesn’t go away like that.”

“Why?”

“Nothing ever goes away completely.”

_“Why?”_

In all honesty, I say: “I don’t know.”

Thick silence again.

“I never deserved this,” Levi speaks up again. “Any of this. Any of what I am. I never asked to be this way. All my life I’ve been an unwelcome parcel shunted between everyone who thinks they have the time of the day for me. I wasn’t what my parents thought they could put faith into, and I was taken to foster care. Because of my adoption file, I was so _intricate_. The boy who’d survived the fire, holy shit, what a wondrous thing. I hated it all. Foster home meals, foster home attitude, foster home kids. Everyone clearly had lost their appetite for food and existence.”

“What about you?”

“Me too. The only way you could ever see us express emotion was through potential new parents, whenever any chose to come. Then everyone would get on their bellies and show off their ability to roll, bark, play dead.” He sits still for a minute, then pulls my hand to his lap and his knees to his chest. “I was old enough to understand what a corrupt race it was, the foster home. And I was old enough to understand I didn’t have parents anymore. I wish someone had given me time to prepare, to come to terms with it. I wouldn’t have minded then; I knew our family was crumbling. I just wish I had more time. I never got to say goodbye. They were…too preoccupied with being put under custody. Just the idea they might’ve kept me and smoked dope while I was doing my trigonometry homework was enough. Court was inane. There was no hesitation in taking me away from them.”

His lower lip curls, and he looks up at the ceiling of the car to make the budging tears roll back inside. It doesn’t feel right seeing him this unhappy.

“And then this…this feeling, the feeling of being unwanted by the rest of my family, by several parents,” Levi continues, voice raspy. “The only time I can say I’ve been lucky in life is that I only spent a few months under government supervision. Out of my age group, I was the first one to be adopted. The first and _only one_ that year.”

I shake my head in poorly hidden surprise.

Levi’s eyebrows then raise and he starts to speak more animatedly than he ever has. “I was adopted by a real estate salesperson and a _firefighter_ who both believed they could give me the life I deserved. They did—they did, yeah, for a month or two, or three. I stopped counting early into the adoption. I was already twelve at that point, almost thirteen, and it was too late to change anything about the general mindset that I hated my biological parents for conceiving me, and parentals as a whole. I loathed being taken care of; until I realized no one, really, ever did.”

It takes some time to settle. I wonder if he acknowledges that I’m trying to take care of him, too.

Something catches my intrusive thoughts.

“Wait, Joseph’s brother is a firefighter?” I frown.

“Yeah. Chief of the office.”

“How ironic, the sheriff and the fire chief.”

Levi finally smiles, my knuckles at his lower lip. “Nothing else to it than comparing their dick size. They just raced to see who’s the best son in the family, hoping one of them does greater good than the other. This is why I hate families as a construct. You always fight for some—some mindless dominance, you want to be praised, every day, all the time.”

My eyebrows knot a little. “I mean, me and my—“

“Your family is an exception, you have no say in this.”

“Alright.” I sit back a little, taking his hand and pressing it against my cheek. “I hope you don’t mind, but I called you off work today.”

“Do you work?”

“Not tonight.”

“Do you have any plans?”

“No. I’m willing to spend the day with you, if you want that.”

His eyes shine, silently pleading.

We settle on going to the mall.

I force-feed Levi good music. We start with Crosby, Stills & Nash, specifically their song Suite: Judy Blue Eyes. Next comes Paul Anka. Aphex Twin. Phil Collins. Finally, Talking Heads. At Once In A Lifetime, I’m steadily singing with all my might. We’re not talking. I figure, since he’s not saying anything, I’ll sing a lot to balance it out, but then he goes off at a red light next to the only Applebee’s in town with a passion that could feed a village.

“I figured you wouldn’t know, but pre-therapy, my stepfather thought taking me along to every minor or major fire in town would battle my fear, and, really, just rattle it straight out of me,” Levi says. I turn the music down. “Did you know that?”

“No, you never said anything.”

“He tried to reason it’s for my own good. I mean, I get what he was meaning to do. He used to drive me there, in—in those shrieking red trucks, and say, Levi, see, this happens. These things happen to everyone, all around the world. They lose their belongings, they lose families, they become terrified of lighting candles and smoking. I got that, but always refused to get out of the car. As I grew older, I learned how to visually emphasize my fear, and he stopped bothering me. Short-term.”

“Next?” I turn off the road.

“Next came therapy. They told him he was an idiot for doing that. He said he just wanted to help. And I said, _otchimka, ty podonok_ , all this money you’re going to spend on therapy I wouldn’t even need if you hadn’t made me suffer for days end, you know, you—you could’ve bought a car for that.”

“Mmm, yeah. I know. People not qualified in helping trying to help.”

“You know, I think he became a firefighter because he loves fire so much.”

Leonard Cohen silently sings Suzanne in the background, and it fades into the engine of my Impala.

“Oh, I bet there's more of them than you'd think,” I carelessly reply. I don’t pay much attention to what I’m saying being the driver. “I’m reading more about it now, since this whole thing is actively going on. Whole Wikipedia article on firefighters igniting fires to feed their ego afterwards. Revenge, anger, money; sole reasons for it. Pride plays a large role, too.”

The stare Levi gives me is very bare of emotion, and vulnerable, in some odd way.

“Yeah,” he emptily says. “Isn’t it captivating how they have so much power in their hands then? They can ignite the fire, but they have all the means to end it, too, they have the equipment and that whole team. Firefighters are a phenomenon. They fascinate me.”

I grin. “Do you want to be a firefighter?”

Levi makes a face.

We drive in silence again. Cohen gets taken over by Sun Kil Moon.

Levi speaks up one more time.

“The thing is, it’s not like I think the world owes me a nice life, but I feel like the world _took away_ my nice life. It hurts because I _had_ it, not because I don’t,” he says, visibly uplifted by the sound of his voice, but not in a good place still. “A lot of people don’t seem to be getting this. I rarely open up about the adoption at all, but god forbid I do and mention being unhappy. They always say I should be thankful, I should love my new parents for the sacrifices they’re willing to make. What seems to be overlooked is that adoption doesn’t always mean it’s a blessing, that’s such a false construct.”

“I don’t _get_ why you’re unhappy, though. I know I’m looking at this from a very surface-level plane of view, but you never explained, and I don’t know Joseph’s brother almost at all.”

Levi takes a deep breath. We pass the Panera he works at as I take the roundabout to get to the mall.

“Because they don’t _get_ mental illness,” he says. “Or trauma. _Or_ children. They were so lost with me, thinking the utmost they’d have to do is get me a therapist for the first few months, to help cope and grow on them. We had family counseling. I got the manic episodes Joseph told you about. Time alone at work was easier to tolerate than time with me, and I wasn’t even aware. It was one of many times I didn’t realize how forbidding I was.”

“Is that why everyone in the family hates you?”

“Yeah,” he says, lusciously. “Everyone fucking loathes me, man. I guess they didn’t send me here for self-growth, after all, now did they.”

I drive in almost silence for a brief while. 81 is, wondrously so, clear. Levi asks for my phone. When I let him take it, he sneaks his fingers in my pocket and gets it out. He opens the glove compartment and pulls out the aux cord.

A while later, he makes a satisfied sound. I was busy musing about the intrusive, but intimate feeling of being pickpocketed.

“What is it?” I tilt my head towards him, eyes on the road.

“When’s the last time you were on Facebook?”

“I…don’t remember. A while ago. I’ve been really occupied with you and work this past week. Are you on my Facebook?”

“Yeah, you have a lot of notifications. Who is Hitch?”

“Armin’s ex.”

“She wrote some camera body is available now,” Levi absentmindedly says. I can’t recall the moment I let him browse through my Facebook account, but there’s nothing I’d want to hide from him. “Some Ymir sent you an attachment, Jean’s asking if you can call him Friday evening.”

I tense. I can feel Levi looking at me, so I turn my head and look outside the window for as long as I can. Then I switch lanes.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Was it Jean or Ymir?”

“Ymir.” I start checking for a free lot to park at. “We were—“

“Park at Sally’s.” Levi discards my weak prompt and points a finger at the store. “I need Sally’s.”

“What for?”

“Bleach.”

I almost run in some silver Lexus.

“I said I’m afraid of being stagnant,” he reasons. “I’ll battle that with platinum hair. I’ll start there. I need to change _something_.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“No, just wait in the car. We can drive to Walmart after, and get…something. Something, like ice cream, or a fruit bowl.”

“I know the best place to buy _raspas_. They also sell _aguas frescas_. We could go to Goodwill, too. I want a fur coat.”

His eyes light up. “Yes.”

Levi leaves to Sally’s and I stay alone in the car. Looking at him with my DIIV shirt on makes me feel some kind of way. It makes my stomach _tingle_. The sleeves hit his elbows where they only reach my bicep.

Only upon opening my door do I realize how much of the smoke had seeped into the car; the contrast between fresh mall air and stuffy post-fire reek is mighty. Instead of smoking while sitting with the door open, I get out and lean against the back. Some teenagers coming from Lowe’s look back at me and my car in almost disbelief. A girl pokes at her friend, some boy I’ve never seen, and points at me. They look like siblings, both tan-skinned, with bushy eyebrows. The girl’s hair is light grey.

I quite idly smoke my Camel and keep eye contact.

 _“¡Oye!”_ The girl suddenly calls out, pulling her friend along. They both separate off from the others, and she points at my car. _“¿Qué onda, wey? ¿Ese es tu carro? Mi amigo piensa que está bien chido.”_

 _“Por supuesto, culpéame,”_ the boy says. _“Ella quiere su número.”_

_“¡Cállate, hombre!”_

I quickly register what’s going on. _“¡Hola! Sí, ese es mi coche. Bonito, ¿no?”_

 _“Ah, sí. ¿Cuánto era? Me encanta el color. Intenso. Por cierto, mi nombre es_ Rico.” The girl stretches her hand out. _“¿Eres de por aquí?”_

I shake her hand. “Eren. _Lo tengo como un regalo de graduación, así que no lo sé. Soy de_ Greencastle _. ¿Hablas inglés, por casualidad? Es que no estoy acostumbrado al español en estos días.”_

_“Realmente no, lo siento. Estamos visitando ala familia.”_

_“Ah, vale.”_

It feels refreshing to hear Spanish once in a while, but I feel my tongue twist while speaking. Jean only knew a few things I occasionally said to him, and Levi doesn’t know anything. It then boils down to family and some friends from high school so little in number I can count them on my fingers.

I still have half a cigarette, and my back is turned against Sally’s. Both of them are still standing there, but the guy seems eager to leave now that he’s satisfied Rico’s needs. Partly satisfied; she never got my number.

 _“¿Trabajas aquí? ¿Receso para fumar?”_ The girl asks, tilting her chin towards the mall. “ _¿O esperas a alguien?”_

My heart suddenly flutters.

_“Sí, mi novio.”_

This feels great. Saying it feels nice. Not in the sense that it’s natural repellant for people interested in me, but… _Mi novio, el amor de mi vida. Lo amo tanto._ We never spoke about this, but calling Levi my boyfriend is something I could commit to without his knowledge.

I impatiently look over my shoulder, pecking at the burning tip of the cigarette with my index finger, and there he comes, my DIIV shirt-clad boy. The bruises I gave him are visible. It brings joy and wrenching guilt. I solemnly wonder whether Joseph noticed, and, for a second, if he cared. Levi’s jeans are a lighter wash today, a fresh cornflower blue, cuffed at the ankles, and the shoes are the same as ever. A white Sally’s bag slung back over his shoulder, he smiles at me, but the smile faints at both newcomers, eyes linger on Rico.

“Hi?” He tries, looking them down head to toe. “Are these your friends, Eren?”

“No. They just asked about the car, how much was it, if I were from around here. Stuff. _Eso_ —that’s Rico.” I point at the girl. She waves at Levi mid-conversation. “I don’t know the guy’s name. They’re Spanish.”

“How do I say we have to go make out in Goodwill?”

 _“Tenemos que ir beso en_ Goodwill,” I whisper. Then, turn back to Rico. _“De acuerdo, creo que nos vamos. Fue agradable conversar contigo, los jóvenes.”_

_“Tu novio es muy guapo. Cuida bien de él.”_

I feel blood creep to my cheeks. _“Gracias,_ Rico _, lo haré.”_

_“Buena suerte.”_

They walk off with slight hesitation and lingering glances at the Impala. My cigarette has burned up to the very filter when Levi pulls out his pack.

“I love when older women tell me I’m wise,” he says with a faint air of boredom. I watch him light the Parliament with an oddly familiar lighter. “The woman at Sally’s, she went on about it, about how I must be some creative type. I don’t really connect spiritually or socially with older men. Maybe that’s why I want a daughter.”

“You want kids?”

“Oh, no. That was rhetorical.” Levi drags the cigarette. Silenced Funkadelic plays from the car. “I don’t know if I should be bummed or not, but the girl seemed to like you.”

“I told her I was waiting for my boyfriend,” I shyly say, watching his expression mold into something questionable, and suddenly look for a way to cope. “I mean, not that I can take it back now, or that it matters to someone I won’t meet again, but it felt nice to say.”

Levi silently smokes.

Then, looks at me.

“No, you can say that. I want you to say that.”

“Do you…” I trail off, feeling my voice grow weak. “Do you think this would work?”

He nods, slowly at first, and then quicker, turning to me, as if he was making sure I saw him agree. “Yes.”

Mall parking lot romance. In five years I’ll remember this and never want to open my mouth again. I’m a guy who doesn’t really mince words, so I pull myself together and let my fingers grip some rigged edge of my car’s trunk.

My hip is digging a dent in the back of my car; this isn’t the easiest thing to break.

“Do you want to be my boyfriend?” I very contently ask. I’m surprised by how confident I sound.

Levi was midway to his cigarette when I asked that, so now he stops and stares straight at the McDonald’s across the lot. My stomach does a fine somersault when he looks back at me, visibly _angered_.

“You stole my fucking line,” he says. Then, takes a drag and continues, the smoke gradually rolling past his lips as he speaks. “I—uh. Eren, I don’t know. I always opted to make my life less of a love story than it is now.”

My mouth falls open and I quickly turn my head towards Lowe’s to hide the shock.

 _He didn’t say yes,_ the voice in my head chants.  _He didn’t say yes. What the fuck are you going to do now, die? Why did you assume living with him equals some healthy relationship you would both suffice from?_

I feel a poke at my bare arm. When I turn, eyebrows curled in a worried matter, Levi is _very_ close to my face.

“I’m playing moderately easy to get,” he whispers. “I want to be your boyfriend so bad, you’re not going to believe me, love.”

I don’t even get to comment on being called “love”. With a burning cigarette between us, he pulls me in for a kiss.

We’re in the parking lot of a fucking mall. I’m twenty-one, mildly depressed and currently dating a seventeen year old. Wait until someone hears of this. They’ll jump right out of their pants and tell me they’re unfriending me on Facebook.

I’m feeling slightly ecstatic when we drop by Walmart to get Ben & Jerry’s. I stray off to the drink section and slide a bottle of root beer in the cart. I haven’t had any for a long time. It’s my fountain of youth, I like to believe, it keeps me running. I also drop by the liquors and get Bailey’s. After a while of hesitation, I grab a bottle of Rumchata, too, that good _horchata con ron_. It’s decadent and I know I’ll be able to go to work tomorrow.

On our way to Goodwill, I park the Impala at our railway spot, and we eat ice cream in a sunny Wednesday’s bliss. I even rolled the roof down. The air smells like summer; it’s dry. Fields are being disced by hay mowers and pollen is continuously present. I feel sorry for _papá_. He’s got full-blown hay fever.

Reiner ended up being right. It’s way past eighty degrees, and very, very nice. Levi seems to be getting better; must be the sun, or maybe our factual relationship endeavor.

He tore a page out of my journal so we both had something to scribble on while eating.

“Listen to this.” Levi turns to me, halfway through his pint of ice cream. “I learned how to speak through the door and the floorboard creaks. What does this make you think of?”

“Anne Frank,” I boldly say.

“Okay, good, so it conveys that. Okay.”

“Was it supposed to make me think of Anne Frank?”

“I’m trailing more towards neglectful parents and continuous hiding.” He bites the end of his pen for a while. “Mmm. Through the door and the floorboard creaks… But I never guessed I should see—should see… The sour expense of reality?”

I lick my spoon. “Sounds corny.”

“Yeah, I was thinking. This needs to sound selfless.”

“Try something like…” I flip through my journal, looking for an older page. I feel him trying to catch fragments of pages I check. “Okay, here. I have some rhyme patterns here. The theatre I work at, they had a Romeo and Juliet play, and I wanted to write some sonnets.”

He inspects the page.

“This is really good,” Levi concludes. “Wow, do you mind if I—“

“You can take the page,” I say.

“I really wanted the entire thing. Your journal, I mean.”

I shake my head, my insides rattling along with it at the thought of his hands on all my personal thoughts. My Facebook account he can get, he can do whatever he pleases with it, but not the journal. It has too much of my silenced love confessions. Too much of pining, of baffling fruits of my imagination. It has—it has the ability to drive him away.

 _“That’s_ not happening.”

“Alright. One thing, though.” Levi scoots closer to me, our thighs pressed together. His hand is cold from the ice cream he’d been holding, but he slides his fingers down my forearm nonetheless, over my thumb, and swiftly takes the journal. “Can I read the entry from your birthday?”

My face goes up in flames. I take the marbled notebook back from his shy grip. “Why do you think there was a birthday entry?”

Levi smiles, presses his forehead against my jaw. His hair tickles my skin.

“We’re too alike, Eren,” he lulls from below me. “I wrote about you when I got back to the dormitory, so you must’ve done the same. I…knew you liked me. In some sense, at least. And now that I know of your pattern of writing things down, I’m sure there was a birthday entry.”

Did he psychoanalyze me?

Oddly defeated, I let my head fall back and hit the headrest, and I hand the journal over to him, my index finger tucked between the pages of March 30th. Levi doesn’t take it just yet. He leans over my thigh, one hand planted incredibly close to my crotch, the elbow of the other arm holding him up above my face level as he leans against the seat. Despite us having kissed last night, I feel like all this is unsanctioned and very, very intimate.

Sun rays, light and easy, they hit his hair that now looks more dark chocolate than charcoal, they hug his forearms, embellish muscles. My glasses reflect the light from above. It dances on his bruised neck, his lips. Levi’s wearing a thin chain that perfectly frames the base of his neck, and I find that really striking.

I let my eyes linger on the jarred line of his broken collarbone. It forms a shadow through the shirt and looks out of place. I hum a sound that asks for some explanation, the corners of my mouth curling against my will. Levi takes off my glasses—rather, pushes them up until they get caught in my hair, and kisses me.

Is this feeling _ever_ going to get old?

The bouquet of everything he smells like overwhelms my senses. The kiss obliterates my every thought. I feel—I feel _present_ , I feel _here_. The dissociative feeling from this morning, the tranquility that made me think this was all a dream, it feels put aside for just a moment. All petrifying memories of the fire, of Levi’s vacant stare at it, everything evaporates like late summer sizzle on the roof of my heated Impala.

He tastes like his chocolate chip Ben & Jerry’s that is now melting on my dashboard in late April sun, and I’ve never loved ice cream more than I do now.

I try to be slow and considerate with how I’m pacing my kisses, but when Levi grunts and bites down on my lip, I forget what I was trying to do. I don’t notice my hand slipping under the shirt he’s wearing, but I do feel pressure on my thighs when Levi slides on my lap. It’s stuffy in the car, whatever he’s got in mind has to be small-space-oriented, or at least conveniently short.

“We’re next to a railway,” I hoarsely whisper when he moves to kiss my neck. “There’s a train station two miles ahead, Levi, people pass this lot, _often_ —”

He sits up and combs through his hair. I get a breather, but my jeans feel stupidly tight.

“I guess so,” he silently says, looking at me. “Do you care, though?”

“I’d care if my mother passed us by,” I say.

“Your mother is in Georgia fucking your dad’s brains out. Let yourself have good things.”

I almost scream at the thought of my parents having sex, but Levi swiftly kisses me again; this time it’s obscurely deep and sensual. He laps at my tongue as if I’d be the ice cream we ate, and through yet another train rattle I hear—and feel—the jingle of my belt.

I am out of my mind right now.

The shiver that flows over me seems to be to Levi’s liking. He’s encouraged, leans higher up, his thighs pressed against my sides, fingers working on getting my zipper down, and I _know_ his ass will hit the wheel when he sits back on my lap. My weird prediction is fulfilled, and he really does jam himself on the steer. As awkward and rushed the motion was, I found it to be the sexiest thing ever.

I imagine the backseat has more room, but then remember my cameras are sort of splayed out all across the leather seats, and let the thought go. I’m still clueless as of what the hell Levi has in mind, but he clears that up rather early; accessorily making me blush like I’m feverish—like I never, really, do.

With a soft motion, he runs his palm across my junk, pulls off of my mouth, making me feel sexually abandoned, and then, the same wet, pink lips brushing against my earlobe, he whispers: “Let me blow you, _papi_.”

I almost _mewl_ at what he says. My hips jerk upwards without reaching any friction point asides from Levi’s jean-clad thighs, and I grow to feel really, really uncomfortable in these confines. His hand goes back to my crotch, this time beating that ungodly jean barrier, and he stuffs three of his fingers down my pants. The other hand paws at my right inner thigh. Goosebumps make themselves noticeable.

“You’re insatiable,” I hazily murmur.

“You’re _really_ hot, Eren.” Levi says that, and tugs at the side of my cock. “I’ll get around to saying these things eventually, but, Christ, _ty tak privlekateljno, dorogoy.”_

My stomach drops.

“Say that again?” I almost wheeze.

“What, _dorogoy_?” Levi whispers. His voice is _honey_ at this point; I can selflessly assure you and everyone I know, he has never spoken in a tone so soft and languid. Palming my erection, he keeps on purring. _“Ty khochesh, chtoby ya sosal tvoy chlen?”_

Russian is my favorite language, I guess. Levi laughs at my expression.

If I didn’t want to give in before, I do now. By regular circumstances I’ll leak soon, and I don’t know if I want this to be messy—fuck, I _do_ —but being so out and about next to the railway is so, _so_ exciting. My fingers slide from Levi’s neck up to his swollen lips. I surely don’t expect the dart of his tongue. What I expect even less is my thumb sliding in his mouth, on the same beloved tongue of his, and then he closes his lips around it, and sucks—hard—and by doing so, wraps his hand around my cock. With my thumb slick with his saliva, I run it over his jaw, down to his neck, and have him in a light chokehold.

Levi's eyebrows curl upwards; he moans.

I think, _Jesús Malverde, I probably just came._

I’m being gratuitously pushed back against the driver’s door. Levi kisses the line of skin my bunched-up t-shirt reveals, and he slithers his tongue from my navel down, and I think, _holy fuck, he is not seventeen, there is no way on fucking Earth Levi is seventeen,_ and yet the ID in his green snake skin wallet states so. I make sure he knows I love what he’s doing by loudly breathing against the window of my car, my head turned sideways in some shy display of lust; but I look at him working nonetheless. The glass steams, despite it being warm outside, and the sun hits my skin in ways too joyous and innocent for what Levi’s occupied with.

The roof of my car is still pulled down.

Levi doesn’t yank my jeans or boxers off. He silently asks me to lift my ass off the seat, to which I oblige so he could easily slide both garments lower.

I don’t understand anything. The boy of my dreams, the entity I thought I wasn’t capable of approaching, the angel straight out of Kevin Smith’s Dogma, he’s kissing my dick through my boxers in the front seat of my orange Chevy Impala, and he loves me, and _somehow_ is my boyfriend—by some odd, odd planet alignment. His mouth leaves wet circles on the light grey fabric. It's so awfully obvious I'm hard; the outline of my erection is emphasized by the sun high above. Birds chirp uncharacteristically loud.

 _Of course he's seventeen,_ I think. _This is teenage lust. This is exactly what you want at seventeen: a cock down your throat. That's what I wanted._

My right hand fingers sink in his wavy hair. It’s damp at the roots, and I can’t tell whether the sweat is of nervosity or the warming sun.

 _“Te ves genial desde aquí,”_ I whisper, more to myself, to make it sink in, but he lets his eyelids drop at the appraisal, and pulls me out of my boxers.

I watch him, eyes heavy-lidded, biting at my own index finger.

I can’t believe Mikasa was the one to give me my greatest birthday present ever.

His tongue swipes around the base, soft, sticky, and we make eye contact.

Levi gives my cock a good, long lick, to just the side of it, his tongue paying attention to the spot underneath the head. I ball my fist and pull his hair to let him know how _great_ that feels, and complimentarily bite my lower lip before breaking the first real moan when he dips and does the same thing again. I watch him patiently wet me so it’s easier to take in; Levi spits, twice, long strings of saliva stretching from his lips to the tip of my dick, and I notice myself twitching, the sight itself being wondrous. He's thorough. His tongue flattens at my shaft and goes all but a solid point over the head, and I love that.

When he licks his palm and wraps his ring-covered fingers around me, I feel my jaw drop. The silver is cold against my skin. He squeezes, and I breathe out far too heavily than intended.

“Are you feeling fine?” Levi jokingly asks and pushes the tip of his tongue at my slit; he got the precum. _He has a thing for precum._

“Yes, I feel just fine,” I manage to say back, though barely, and now both of my hands are in his hair. “Keep going.”

“You want me to?”

“Levi, _please.”_

He moves his fingers to free space for his mouth and lays kisses to the underside of my cock. It's beginning to look messy and his hair slides in front of his face, shielding the view, and I'm not fine with that. I slide my hand on his forehead, pulling the thick strands away from his face.

Levi looks up at me, thankful, and I go crosseyed when he dives down to lick my balls. With slow, circular motions, he makes his way back up to my cock.

We lock eyes again, and he takes me into his mouth.

"Fuck..." I growl. "That's so good, Levi, that's so fucking good."

I do try to stay quiet, I try to give less physical reaction than before, but I lose myself in the wet warmth of his mouth in mere seconds, and all power of thought or self-control leaves me. I breathe out, my mouth wide open, and watch every move he makes, feel every iridescent squeeze, every time he rubs the ridge of my cock with his thumb or dives deeper down and swallows around me. He works like a painter, a slow, confident brush here, a stroke there, a short flick or dab; just so.

His right hand slides down from my bare hip to my balls and I feel a particularly heavy-studded onyx ring press on the ridge of my dick. I yelp at that, partly surprised and worked up, and roughly pull at Levi's hair, coming out of his mouth with a wet sound. His head tilted backwards, bruised neck endlessly exposed, eyes on my cock like sucking it is the only thing he knows, it all turns me on beyond human comprehension, and I guide his lips back to the tip which he floods with a mix of spit and precum again.

"Just like that, yes," I whisper, watching him lower his mouth, feeling how tight the back of his throat is. He closes his eyes and swallows around me, at which I cry out, throwing my head back, harshly hitting the headrest. "Yes! God, yeah,  _fuck—"_

Time ceases to exist for me.

I wallow in my own self-pity and blessed existence, and there’s nothing else, no one else I love more than Levi right now.

Levi’s free hand finds it’s way to my stomach, just above my shaft, and presses down. As if the building pressure wasn’t enough, I jerk a little, pushing myself deeper into his mouth. His eyebrows knot at the motion, and I feel him slightly bite down. The familiar tingle of an orgasm finally reaches my brain cells, too.

“I’m—oh my god, Levi, Levi, I’m close. I’m _close_.”

His fingers give me a firmer squeeze, his cheeks hollow a little more, he _hums_ around my cock, and I realize there’s no point in edging if he’s being so insistent.

I blank out completely. My knee hits the wheel; I moan, loudly, grab at the door handle and try to somewhat smoothly ride out the remnants of the climax while Levi still offers his mouth as a place to reside in. The few seconds of post-orgasm haze when you’re still over stimulated and saturated with some blessed feeling, that’s how I want to feel every day, all the time, forever. Levi's hands are now around my shaft, forming a triangle with the space between his thumbs and index fingers, and he keeps sucking with slight force, slowly, and I can't stop fucking groaning at that.

I never figured Levi would swallow, but he swallowed. 

He gives my cock a few tugs to wipe it as clean as he could and patiently dresses me so I don’t look like I just got my brains blown. You can definitely read it in my eyes, but I’d like to think I look fine otherwise. I refuse to let go of his hair up until the point he sits up and next to me, patting at his knees.

“That was…” I begin, but Levi leans over and kisses me, wrapping his arms around my neck.

I taste myself quite vividly. 

There's different energy in this kiss, and his chest is so close to mine I can feel his hammering heart.

* * *

My journal entry hasn’t been this incoherent for years.

_Oh, April 19 th._

_Oh, my, oh, April 19 th._

_I’m dark. White gold looks better with my skin tone than yellow gold does._

_We’d just left the railway parking lot when Joseph shot past us in his Dodge. I got a call from him about two hours later saying someone set the Hill Park’s sauna on fire._ _I told Levi and he seemed oddly distraught._

_That’s all I’m capable of telling you today._

* * *

I give Levi a bowl I eat cereal out of for the bleach, and rubber gloves from the depths of my kitchen drawers so his skin doesn’t peel off. I don’t know if it really does, but I wanted to make sure. Throughout the mixing process I offer calling Christa for sustenance several times, but he tells me he’s done it before and that I should take a shower instead of worrying.

“I’ll wait until you start putting the bleach in,” I respond. And in response to that, Levi takes a handful of the blue paste and packs it right on top of his head.

“Go shower,” he says. When I start walking backwards, out of the kitchen, and up the stairs, I hear him yell: “Fuck, what if this doesn’t _look good?”_

I take as much time as I humanly can in the shower, rinsing my hair, washing my face, leaning against the cold tiles in some unnerving matter. I feel like I sucked up everything from the fire like a sponge, and someone’s trying to wring it all out of me. I don’t feel clean even when I get out.

With a towel around my waist, I stand in front of the mirror again, and observe myself. It gets foggy a couple of seconds after I wipe it at first, but the temperature drops, and I get to melancholically look at myself like it’s the first time I’d done it in years.

My hair reaches my shoulder blades when wet and stringy. Out of my face and pulled back, it looks darker; most of the curls are light from sun exposure, but the roots grow a rich hazelnut tone, and that’s all you can see when it’s brushed back. My eyebrows are more prominent this way, so are my cheekbones. I twist and tilt my head to conclude I could shave, stretch my shoulders, close my eyes.

I also come to a conclusion I feel great, despite everything that happened this morning. The blowjob doesn’t leave my mind. Possibly, never will. I think of it every time I close my eyes, and I think of my cum on Levi's tongue every time I watch him eat. That can't be healthy.

I lean on my forearms and stare straight into my green eyes.

I’ve never been this happy, have I, now? With myself, with everything. _Contentment_ , that’s the word I thought of today, while watching Levi talk. To think it only takes as little as this—just someone to care for you, to kiss you, to blow your fucking brains out. It feels…good to coexist, it feels right, somehow, but only with him. I always wanted a person I’d look forward to talking to instead of viewing it as a task, and I think I got what I asked for.

I think I might’ve finally gotten my big prize in life. If this is my peak, I can't imagine it getting any worse, ever.

I shave in silence and try not to smile so I don’t cut myself.

When I walk downstairs, to the kitchen, and lean against the wall in the hallway leading to the living room, I do allow myself to smile. Levi’s sitting on the couch, in the corner of it, doing his literature homework with bleach in his hair. The sight is quite endearing.

I remember when I used to think I could only love him in my dreams, not that long ago.

Not even a day ago.

* * *

_Thursday, April 20 th. I think I'm growing out of you, journal. I have Levi to talk to._

_Editing class was fun for once. We had a photography course and Levi was the center of everyone’s attention due to his hair. Hair, and possibly bite marks I left last night when he asked if I could sleep in his bed. I gave him a feisty handjob as an overly-polite "thank you", and we spoke of my interesting sexual preferences during the afterglow. We were both too tired to have sex, I think. I never asked._

_No one knows we have something going on, and Levi seems to like staying ambiguously desirable. Hitch is trying to get closer. I'm going to bare teeth if she slides her hand near his thigh again._

_His hair looks so fucking good. His eyebrows are dark, they stand in great contrast with the light gold hair. He now tosses his long bangs to either side, messily, like that, and leans on his knuckles to rest his chin. Levi's also went from silver to gold jewelry. Since we chose portraits for this class, I took a few good pictures of him. With the thick rings wrapped around every other finger, he looks like some royalty, some newborn king. He didn't pose as sensually for others. I was the only one who got a shot of his thumb pulling at his lower lip, exposing white teeth, eyes on me, not the camera, and a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth._

_I am mesmerizingly in love with him and Tom Waits, too._

_I couldn't stop kissing him in the car, and I'm only free to write now because he's passed out on my lap on the living room couch. He fell asleep watching the fireplace._

* * *

_Friday, April 21 st . I leave for Washington today. Levi and I conclude we’re through and through weird, and that the inherent weirdness works as a magnet for odd incidents. The coffee shop I used to go to in Hagerstown was playing a song from The Lemon of Pink a few days ago when we went there for signature lemon cake. Completely threw me to hear The Books in the wild. And then I was at a bar called Vest, yesterday, after work. It had one of those quarter Internet-connected jukeboxes. Some guy kept putting on The Seer by Swans, the title track. A lot of people left. I'd had a few bottles of rhubarb cider, so I walked up to a group of people who seemed to be vaguely into the music playing, and pulled up my shirt, showcasing that pretty tattoo of mine._

_Seven by Sunny Day Real Estate at a Five Guys just this morning._

_See, I grew up on Christian country music and other off-putting tunes. Even a case as lost as I was, I managed to spiral out of it and find music more globally accepted—not that there's anything wrong with country._

_Kidding, there's a lot wrong with country. Not with Silver Jews, per se, but the rest needs my professional take._

_Levi spoke about things that make him happy during our ride to Five Guys so I could drop him off at school after breakfast. He admitted anything inorganic and solid smells pretty good when burned. That, and in certain context, body odor “can be sort of hot, to be honest”. Specifically Ironlak spray paint. Old vacuum cleaners being turned on. I said leftover frijoles refritos con pan tostado for breakfast is all I need for my unconditional happiness._

_Levi then said he could give up a lot to be with me, because with me, he's the happiest he has ever been._

What is tucked in this page as a bookmark is a note Levi left me before I drove off. I read it over when I stop for gas and a smoke just halfway to Washington.

_Limp in isolation, you’ve neglected the house of God to decipher cursed winter, you winner. A sacred house on fire running on all but the words and confessions of a sinner. Filthy cherubs rejecting me on corner shops and infirmaries. Who am I, but a circus scene, forever kept infernal heat?_

_Fearfully close, inside, you let your disdain slide, oh, my. Savor your cathedral to dismal dusk, make less sparse the musk, less dry. Sheltering sky weeps at how fear can be surging, not merely purging, or even mine. The aftertaste of kisses fine—eternally, your shine, divine._

_To stay still through undertows and overseas never seemed much in your arms, less as to sit back at gloomy crimson shine atop of solemnly burning barns. Surrender, if you will, if you want and can sit still, for if I don’t recognize my hurt, there might be tears on your sweatshirt. Your charm’s a harm, please stay alert; I’m your dessert, godless pervert._

_Aligned, my foremost, I loved it dearly, too._

_Signed, somebody morose, but sadly never you._


	6. Waxed (Sixth Circle)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Gazastrippin](https://gazastrippin.tumblr.com) on Tumblr.
> 
> [Playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/hentaivert/playlist/2rND5iE0iUjELcUuuIYn1o) here.

_Friday evening, 21 st of April still. _

_I haven’t been to Bethesda in so long._

_Because I couldn’t be bothered with hotels and the city’s horrid accommodation charges, I stayed at a film school friend’s place in the very heart of Bethesda. Marlo lives almost above Georgetown’s Cupcakes, in this chic, converted loft; large windows, heated brick walls, surreal view at night. It looks a bit like the apartment George offered Jerry in the second episode of Seinfeld. His place is the kind you don’t want to throw a party at. Think expensive gifts, figurines, think rug walls, think paintings and framed prints that cost what I’m about to earn shooting fifteen hours a day for three days. This is why modeling shoots are so sought-after and well paid—they’ll want you to milk out the whole thing for revenue. Not only do you have the shoot itself, you want behind-the-scenes. You want interviews._

_It’s admirably hotter in Washington._

_We had light drinks at a bar Marlo chose. I’ll try to get some sleep in my account._

* * *

_22 nd of April. I took the Bailey’s I bought on Wednesday hoping I get a night off to finish it, and I’m doing that right now. Today was rough. I’m the youngest of the crew, the only one not based in Washington, therefor not used to the surroundings either, but I showed my coworkers bits of my portfolio on a cigarette break and they said I have a lot of potential. Some asked for my e-mail, which I gladly gave out._

_There are three sets scattered around the city. Marlo helped me around since I only know how to get to places with the metro, and not my car. I need to get around with the car. Taking the metro with all my equipment is just not realistic._

_Marlo often says he sells furniture to Arabian princes, and then sometimes he says he sells the princes as well. Black market, baby. Marlo is different from the people I normally like, he’s from the city. His personality is saturated with everything a real city-based person is; not at all family-oriented, just work, getting paid, hustling, every day, all the time. He was like that when we studied in Maine, too, always eager to take up as much as he can, but that’s really paying off, his New Yorker upbringing. He currently works for a company that does a lot of live production. It’s given him the chance to rub elbows with people in the business. Marlo, yeah, he’s a real visionary. He’s something else._

_I spent a couple of months after film school working at the theater and not really having the time, energy or means to get anything sustainable going on the film work front (other than the occasional flat rate odd-job). I’m lucky I had Marlo and friends from film school who’d managed to get their careers started in the big cities. They all ended up in a position to start tossing me gigs. If it wasn't for them, I might still be stuck on the theater technician treadmill as a full-time job._

* * *

I’m cradling a glass of iced Bailey’s and scribbling another paragraph in the journal when my phone lights up. I register the caller as Jean and ask Marlo to turn King Crimson down. Pen between my teeth, I reach for the phone and press it between my ear and shoulder.

 _“Mi vida!”_ I gleefully greet him, speech slightly muffled. “Hey, dude. I’m in Washington.”

 **“Hi, man.”** I’ve missed his lazy voice. **“Guess where I am.”**

“Nowhere else than at your pops. How’s Ohio, how are you hanging? I got the message on Facebook, but it didn’t cross my mind I should call you this late at night.”

Marlo knowingly nods on my left when I look over; I told him about Jean taking his leave when we had lunch this afternoon. He knows Jean through film festivals I’ve dragged him to. I prop my feet on Marlo’s glass coffee table, pushing my schedules and timetables aside with a socked foot.

**“Ohio’s good. What’s going on isn’t. I’m sorry I didn’t call you earlier, man, I’ve been so worked up over this thing with dad and all. School here sucks, it sucks. I’ve got 9 AM lectures every week, and getting to work by bus during traffic hours just fucking drains me. The store’s all across town, so I have to haul my ass through downtown, and I can’t say I’m having a good time doing that.”**

“How’s pops?”

 **“Daddy-o on a date right now,”** Jean sourly says. **“I can’t imagine what it’s like, dating him, but if you’re asking for my insight, I don’t think he’s anywhere near presentable.”**

“Yeah?” I take a sip of the liquor and wash it around in my mouth. “He looking good at least?”

**“He’s lost weight, man.”**

“He got anything to lose?”

**“Yeah, I didn’t think so, either. His cheeks are so hollow now, eyes got that druggie shine. Doesn’t really look like himself anymore, I don’t think so. The divorce was fine. She didn’t get his house, that’s cool, but she got all his savings, so he’s driving to work with my car. Everyone thinks he’s gone crazy after that girl left him and went out to buy a spanking red Mustang.”**

“Oh, he’s working now? That’s so good.”

 **“Yeah, he’s working, yeah. His manager kept bugging him about this. I heard he'd went on vacation and never really got back to work. I don’t know, I hope it keeps going well, that the date is fine, I hope he finds someone that can take care of him without being a leech,”** Jean says. I hear him flick a lighter. **“I don’t want a fourth divorce. He should be more considerate of his son, too, you know.”**

“Oh, yeah, he needs some sustainable person. He drop weed yet? Your ma called, by the way, she called some days ago. I was out with Levi, I couldn’t pick up. She sent a text saying I should see Mikasa. Mikasa’s hanging out at your ma’s now. Have you talked to either of them?”

The silence I assumed as his smoke break prolongs, and I listen to the silent interstate buzz.

“Jean?” I cautiously speak up. “Jean, have you called anyone?”

**“No.”**

“Why? What’s the matter, man? You know we're all looking out for you.”

**“You’re at Marlo’s, no?”**

He doesn’t want to talk about it. I get it, somehow. So I keep the conversation running, just like he would. It sometimes bothers me we know each other like our own ten fingers.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m at Marlo’s. Remember that modeling shoot I told you about? I’m working three days straight, district to district, that’s cool. Keeps me busy. I was feeling too locked up back home, I think. I needed to go out some, somewhere that’s not just Vest or Blue Salem.”

 **“That’s great, you’re getting paid well. Get some. How’s Levi? You two getting along?”** Jean asks, seeming honestly interested. **“He’s not staying in my room, right?”**

“No, no, he’s staying in the sunroom. We moved my old bed there, moved things around.” I then take a pause to drink and pull my legs back on the couch. Before I say what I’m about to say, I look over my shoulder to check if Marlo’s in the room. His absence lets me avoid whispering. “We’re getting along well, yeah, it’s good. It’s good, Jean.”

**“How good?”**

"I’m talking car head good.”

He drags a long whistle and an “oh my god” not that long after. **“I called dibs on you two when I was talking to Mikasa after that night at the bar. You two looked so out of it, you know? Never seen you look at someone quite the same. He looks good, too good, too good for you to pass it up. I know you too well."**

I laugh at that. “That scares me sometimes. Really does. How’s your—how’s your social life, man? Got any new friends, anyone?”

**“Some. Sasha’s out of town, so I’m hanging with Connie, and then I’ve got some people from the last time I was here, but I’m kind of out of loop _and_ my mind, I don’t know. I don’t have that much free time for anything. I’ve just got to work all the time, work, take care of daddy-o, somewhat, and then study, and all that.”**

“Are you two good with money? Do you need any?” I ask. He’s not saying anything for a while again, but I keep budging the topic this time. A girlfriend isn’t really the same thing as nearly being broke. “Hey, if you ever need any money, I can send you some.”

 **“Eren, you know how it is,”** Jean then silently says. **“I’m not going to ask money from you, we went over this months ago.”**

“You won’t ask, but you can take it if you need it.”

**“I’m getting along. It's fine. I’ll get through this, alright? If I won’t find ways to make ends meet, I’ll ask mom. All I need is your faith. You’re the comic, religious and financial relief desperately needed in these dark times.”**

“Your ma just spent seven thousand of which I offered to foot three on my car’s paint job, I don’t think she’s all that wealthy to be sending cash around like you claim.”

The line falls silent.

 **“Seven thousand?”** He whispers.

“Well, it’s a vintage car, man. It’s a classic. Restoring classics isn’t all that cheap. I drove it to Maaco’s, to Frederick’s Maaco’s, Bert knows those guys. I felt safer leaving her with them.”

**“I want to kill Kath, and I wish I were kidding.”**

“I should’ve just paid for it myself,” I admit. “I was coerced into this because she said she couldn’t live with herself knowing her son’s ex ruined my boho car.”

 **“Like you wouldn’t know my ma,”** Jean says.

“Like I wouldn’t know your ma,” I repeat.

* * *

_Sunday, 23 rd of April, _is scribbled neatly in my journal. _My first coffee break of the day I use up solely for chain smoking five cigarettes and getting my ass back in gear fifteen minutes later. I’m writing this on my second break, the lunch break, out with Marlo. I don’t know why he chose Gringos & Mariachis; maybe because of my excessive use of Spanish in his Colombian neighborhood and the fact that he’s picked up I’m severely Mexican in my essence. I get chicken tostadas and a pint of lime beer. Like Marlo said, “I’m sober not even a single day of a modeling shoot. On the down low, if they got trees, I’m bumping those, too.”_

_I turned down a few dime bags when offered—I felt like I had to leave a good impression on the executives that leer around set like vultures. This gig pays in cash, and to regular operators they have experience with, up-front. Losing a spot like this to a dime bag would really dent my local reputation, and I’m not known for being a pothead, unlike my sister._

* * *

_They gave us free lingerie,_ says a messy line below where I spilled mango smoothie _. All camera operators and models received sponsored bags of everything that was shown today. It’s all impeccable high fashion. It’s frilly. It’s nylon. It’s silk. Grenadine silk._

_I’m losing my mind._

_“For your girlfriend,” the executive winked, having close to no idea who I imagined these clothes on._

* * *

_It’s 2:43 AM. The last shoot wrapped up about an hour ago, but I got tied up for some time to talk to one of the models that claimed she’d seen me somewhere. I also felt she seemed familiar, appearance-wise, but couldn’t pull it together. She was only marginally attractive. I asked if she’s been to any film festivals in the area, since I frequent those, but she said, no, it’s through some people, some Facebook pictures, something. We spoke briefly of the shoot. She then asked if I knew a Ymir as a means to keep the conversation running, and everything washed over me like crystal clear water._

_Her name is Ilse, see, and Ilse does adult entertainment to an extent. She’s a model who does all from A to Z for maximum revenue and versatility on her resume. The shoot today was on luminous paint and phosphorescent lingerie. Corsets. Babydoll nightgowns. The set was full of dolled-up girls followed by clouds of fragrance, wearing seemingly white basques, chemises, hosiery, negligees and French knickers. Sounds complicated, but it’s really just glow-in-the-dark lace bras, lithe girls and garter belt stockings—a lot, lot, lot of them._

_Ilse’s occupation ties in with what Ymir was doing. She did the same thing. She wasn’t a sex worker, per se, but a big ambassador for that, for BDSM awareness, sex trafficking, female-friendly pornography and escorts. When I first met Ymir on a New Years Eve get-together with my Maine friends, I was blown away by how gorgeous and well spoken she was, so I stridently approached her that night. Not even two hours later this coquette was twirling a lock of my hair around her index, whispering things in my ear I never would’ve dreamed of, her tangerine scent surrounding me, hazing every individual thought of mine. And mind you, I was eighteen when this happened, I was just out of high school, so the concept of a woman in her mid-twenties flirting with me at a public friend outing just blew my mind. I caved in, and we had quite unconventional sex in her Rockville apartment._

_The road from then on was flimsy. Ymir had money, so she spent it on my growth; we went to Mexico on her vacations and she met my family. Mamá never liked her. We drove to California, spent days in Los Angeles eating nothing but ice cream and scampi, doing nothing else than fucking in love hotels with tiled mirrors above beds and dubiously used chains coming out of the headboards. We went out together, fairly often, and in all her business meetings or formal parties, I was shown off like some toughly achieved prize at the end of a competition. I was polished. Ymir bought me Nordstrom suits, she bought me cologne, she went through my hair every other night to detangle it, conditioned it, brought me to masseurs, gave wonderful head—to an outsider, you’d think she had some son complex and wanted to take care of me. I loved being hers, mostly because I felt the money she spent on me was mine—it made me feel wealthy looking like this, walking alongside an intelligent, mature, progressive woman wherever I went, despite working late shifts at a theater and barely pulling ends together on my filmmaking career. I felt like I was loved in return, and I felt taken such good care of. But loving someone like a prized possession differs from loving someone like a person you care about._ _It never occurred to me good things, great sex and perfect serenity don’t last._

_Her once fleeting dominance began to overshadow whatever faith an eighteen-year-old could have in his own masculinity, and it soon became clear I’ve turned into a pampered pansy. I wasn’t afraid of being submissive, but I’d lost all substance I could once put pride into. I went from top to bottom, figuratively, harness and physical restraint was incorporated in our sex life in a less than gradual pace, and while I was fretting the change, my desire to live up to her expectations just kept me going. I took initiative on most nights from then on. She was my rigger. Ymir loved seeing her silk shorts on my boyish frame, she loved watching me roll around king-sized beds in ripped fishnet tights while working on her manuscripts and everything else I didn’t know of because I’d been too shallow._

_I think, subconsciously, that I was living the life I never thought I wanted._

_I spent good time studying how to do self-bondage. The first week didn’t go that well. I got vacuum-sealed hemp rope from a storage unit I assumed no one would need, but the strain was too harsh, and I ended up messing up my skin and nearly choking myself to death at that. I was rubbing my wrists during class on days we couldn’t meet. My waist was as red as all hell._

_The first technique I mastered was the hishi gote. Then, the pentagram finish. Double coin harness. After more visible bruises due to knot tightness and my skin getting used to several types of rope, I graduated to tying down mannequins when I couldn’t do some on myself._

_I soon learned how to tie myself up solely for aesthetic purpose and still stay mobile and functional. The karada, called rope dress, it hugged my body and pulled the arms back, but with certain alterations and switched-up knots, I figured a way to make it work without restraining my movement._

_Ymir liked crossdressing, I realized this early in the affair. She liked seeing me wear unconventional clothing. I might’ve sparked the flame when we were at hers one night, in June, I think, not too long before we parted ways for good. Rummaging her closet for my own clothes, I put on her nightdress to humor us, but it didn’t occur to me she might like what she was seeing. It became an occasional thing. I grew to get off to being praised in girl’s clothes. I wore hers, mostly, we were of the same build, me, with my scrawny teenager body, and her—athletic, clean-cut, tall. She always struck me as masculine. Her speech gave it away, too, her mannerisms, her facial features and sturdy personality, how low her voice was, even. For a long time, I couldn’t figure out Ymir’s love towards crossdressing—until I did._

_I remember the place we were staying at when she broke the news: the Andaz (former Riot Hyatt) on Sunset Strip. I wore my newly revamped version of the hishi gote underneath my black t-shirt, so that the rope around my neck looked more of a collar, a necklace than anything beyond that. Under certain angles of sunlight, you could see the rope pattern that my shirt clung to, and I was feeling out of breath because of chest tightness and how stunning Ymir looked in her baby blue romper._

_I was sitting on the edge of the bed that day, my shirt off so she could tell me how good I’ve gotten at my gotes, jeans cuffed and still covering my legs, despite the zipper being down. I was sitting back, my knees spread before me, elbows holding my toppling weight, and we stared each other down from across the room. She poured iced bourbon for herself in a glass, held it on her palm, and stared distantly in my direction. It was a hot July day in DTLA, sweat rolled between my shoulder blades and clung my hair to my forehead; I was on a job binge, recently a gym rat, and Ymir was seemingly never occupied with anything other than looking amazing and fucking my brains out._

_The pearl bracelet I’d given her melodically jingled against the whiskey glass. After some stifling minutes, she said: “We should stop.”_

_“Stop what?” I’d asked her, unable to clamp the circumstances together; maybe it was the lack of oxygen, or the spreading smell of her bourbon._

_“Stop seeing each other,” Ymir replied faintly._

_What I thought the only person to love me under any given condition was expressing refusal to be with me. It wasn’t shock I felt, it was betrayal of sort. For long August days and even longer nights, I kept wondering how could love evaporate so quickly. Maybe it was never love to begin with, and I’d been momentary weakness for her high spirit. When I came down my love haze and began perceiving things on a more realistic plane of thought, I finally convinced myself Ymir loved women, above all. Her cognitive feelings towards fellow girls were too strong to allow love towards a man. The one-sided text messages to my sister proved it later on, the missed calls painted all blank spots of the canvas. Nothing was wrong with me; this was the first breakup during which I realized that. I knew I’d acted upon my best will, and I knew there was nothing taint about how I felt towards her._

_So we ceased what we’d had together, through her bourbon and my teary attempts to get the hishi gote off, and went our separate ways._

_After a long road of learning to live without her, I turned to more adamant ways of pleasing myself. Here came my Bethesda nights and sexual versatility. Rough sex became a coping mechanism to regain my sense of masculinity, and I began turning to men as a means to relearn my origin. I felt fine. It felt good to settle back to who I once was, erasing the affair with an unsure end of a pencil._

_But like any cheap eraser, it left smudged paper._

_I realized I couldn’t grow attached to anyone I met. To say I’d grown desensitized to the concept of relationships would largely be an understatement. Many people fell off, disappointed in who I was beneath my exterior and sex appeal, and I came to conclude none of this was meant for me._

_For the following years of film school my sense of self became dust. Dust settles. Work was all I let myself be occupied with. I never saw in anyone what I desperately wanted to, and the tightness in their smiles wasn’t feeding the crave of humanly rawness I wished for. I went through a meat grinder of self-doubt before Levi came into my life, in the form of everything I needed, and quitting had never been so alluring until I turned twenty-one. And it scares me now, it scares me all I can do is ball fists on the daily and pray what we have has substance to last._

_A lot crosses my mind when I think of him. I fear our age gap and his relation to the sheriff. Every day, I’m on the verge of trouble. Every single day, I wonder if this relationship won’t turn out to be yet another waste of time and blanched emotion, and I fear August the most. I fear August for its capability to fling him back to Virginia forever, and I’ll be left with a gaping hole in my chest once again._

_God, think less, Eren. Think less. Think less._

* * *

My throat is burning when I put down the pen and push my journal away.

I soared back when this breakup with Ymir was ongoing and I’d filled my composition books with all the hurt I could get out of myself. Now it feels like a memoir; and, essentially, is exactly that. It’s not even dull, the sorrow, it’s less than dull. I’ve stopped reacting to that period of my life entirely.

Marlo isn’t home tonight, he’s out on a shoot, and so I don’t have anyone to spill to this late. Picking at the scabs of memories of ex-lovers makes me overly sentimental.

I reach out for my phone and find my last conversation with Levi, having decided I’ll text him.

Before writing anything, the bag of lingerie catches my eye. I stare at it vacantly.

I don’t expect a response until around eleven, when he gets up for school, but it takes around five minutes for him to message me back. I’ve already poured myself a second glass of Marlo’s whiskey by then, settled on his white leather couch in the atmospheric living room.

I press the cold glass against my cheek and smile.

I don’t think much before typing it out.

He sings crazy good. His voice is deep for a teenager, very husky late at night. I like the Russian lullabies he hums when we’re both on the brink of sleep probably most of all.

And now I suddenly hesitate. I stare across the room again, at the bagged lingerie, and wonder if drawing all of my “I want to see you in white silk” nonsense to our romance is any smart. Surely not. I wouldn’t want anything from 2014 to surge within this relationship.

 _But it’s different now,_ I decide. _You’ve grown, and he’s nothing like she was. Go on. Scoot. Go ahead._

Before typing the message, I head over and get the bag. Skimming over the clothing, I conclude this can barely be called clothing. This is nothing.

This is loincloth at best.

I chop up the bone of contention and don’t add the necessary question mark so it doesn’t sound too serious of a probe.

His immediate response jabs at my chest.

I give myself a second to breathe. The alcohol spreads hot through my chest.

The three dots pop up.

They disappear.

I sit up in the couch, unsettled. The whiskey cheerily clunks in the glass I’m holding, staring at the murderous sign letting me know he’s writing.

And a second later:

I think I’m bad influence. My promise to Joseph and Karen was that I’d make sure school and work are his top priorities, and everything else is more or less secondary. He’s graduating this year, in over a month. I get that being in love steals time and thoughts, but Tuesday morning can wait, and while doing so, morph into Tuesday night.

God, but do I wish he could skip.

This sends a jolt of shivers down my spine, and I lick my lips to make up for the mental process this message fueled.

I crassly stuff my free hand down my pants for warmth and comfort, and god knows what else.

I lazily rub myself through my underwear, and shakily keep typing.

Levi doesn’t respond for a good minute. I’m holding my whiskey glass atop the phone, so when it buzzes again, I hear it.

It does around a minute later.

Marlo’s out. I don’t even think. I cross my heart, tap on his contact name and press the green icon.

 **“Hi,”** Levi breathes out after the first three signals.

“Hey. I haven’t been this tired in a lifetime.”

**“Your voice sounds better in person, but I can work with this.”**

I let whiskey do the talking. “Appreciate what you have, _mi amor.”_

We let silence take part of this conversation, until Levi lengthily sighs. I consider it a sign of exhaustion, or maybe embarrassment, because Levi never calls, but the shakiness of his breath at the very end of the sigh gives it away.

I still on the couch. “Levi?”

Any previous movement stops. He chokes out a: **“Yeah?”**

“Are you busy?” I intentionally lower my voice at the question.

I know what he’s doing.

Thinking about it makes me excited.

 **“I’m thinking about you,”** he whispers breathily, close to my ear. **“Kind of.”**

“Levi?”

**“I’m thinking about how I want you here, next to me—on top of me. Close, and…close. Three days feel like a lot when the bed is empty.”**

I imagine myself hovering above him in my bedroom, blinds shut, us, wrapped in cobalt darkness as he moves underneath me, my lips pressed vastly on his tattooed shoulder. The taste of his skin on my tongue as I slide it down his chest and watch him take it all in with burning anticipation. His shivers when I kiss his cock through slippery silk, his hands tugging at my hair as I pull the shorts aside to eat him out.

“I’m thinking about eating you out,” I say, silently, my eyes closed. The palm of my hand works rough circles on the base of my cock, and the hum he gives as an approval just keeps me going. “God, that’s all I want right now. I want you. I can’t wait to get home and see you again.”

My directness works as shock measure; he emits a questionable sound on the other end of the line. **“Your sheets smell like you, Eren. My sheets smell like you. It’s driving me crazy.”**

“I’ve been gone for two days,” I whisper. “I’ll make up for that.”

**“You should’ve fucked me before leaving.”**

My breath hitches. Levi’s not known for anything as provocative as this in my book. “I’ll make up for everything,” I repeat in a haze.

 **“How?”** His voice is raspy.

“Do you want me to spoil it?”

**“Kind of, yeah. Yes. I intend to mess up your sheets tonight.”**

“The harness on the door of my bathroom isn’t camera gear,” I say. “No dog leashes, either. I’ve been through my spare time of sexual exploration.”

**“Do you want to tie me up?”**

The question feels like a kick in the ribcage. It’s direct and I can’t dodge it in any way. I swallow, dry, and let my head fall back against the leather cushion of the couch. My eyes fall shut as I deliriously pull at my cock. “Yes.”

**“Yeah? Tie my hands back so I’m all yours to play with?”**

_“Yes,_ Levi.”

 **“Wish to hear what I want?”** Levi asks, the question etched with some cunning undertone. **“I want your hands behind your back so I can ride you on the floor and make a mess out of whatever good boy you pretend to be."**

"Holy fuck."

**"Let me fuck myself on top of you. You’ll be shaking for hours end, Eren, I’ll rut on your fat—”**

I moan, but my frown is unsolicited and barely hides surprise. My voice falters through the heavy breathing of the both of us, but I manage to force out a coherent sentence. “Where’s all of this coming from?”

 **“I’ve had so much time with myself, god…”** Levi pants. **“I want you to fill me up, up to the fucking brim.”**

I lose it.

“I’ll fuck you so hard,” I whisper, every word elongated. “The second we’re alone, I’ll fuck you raw until you beg me to stop.”

**“No mercy?”**

“No,” I rapidly breathe out, feeling heat sting the muscles of my moving arm. “After this phone call, none.”

 **“I want you to cum inside me,”** Levi barely utters, lost in his own rhythm. **“I’ll be so good for you. I’ll—fuck, I’ll be so good for you.”**

I’m now pressing down hard, my cock swollen, ready for a good, long pounding I’m getting Tuesday night at best. My thighs are quivering despite trying to stay calm, and I find it difficult to hold my suddenly so slippery phone. I probe it on the headrest of the couch, close to my ear still, and one of my hands digs in the bag to rummage for anything that feels like soft silk. Once found, it’s pressed against my cheek, my nose, the heavy fragrance of on-set girls dulling my senses. I think of the panties as Levi’s, of the scent as Levi’s, and run my tongue against the sheer material.

“You’re so good,” I whine through the fabric, wishing I could press my lips against his shaking, sweaty abdomen, kiss his faint happy trail, suck his cock through this silk, make him _feel amazing._ “You’re my good fucking boy…”

**“Say that again.”**

Not sure of my own credibility at this point, I do as I’m asked. “You’re my good fucking boy, Levi.”

The moan that erupts from my phone’s speaker solidly borders with a scream. I can now clearly hear the wet sound of Levi’s hand at work, how he whimpers my name, muffles his voice with my pillow, my blanket, my sheets. More distinctive are the creaks of my mattress as I hear him jolt upwards, morale fogged with orgasm daze. Levi’s last moan is long and low, with rare, deep inhales as he rides it out.

I join him, teeth sinking in the panties I’m holding as my free hand works short strokes at my tip. I milk myself thoroughly, and know, at the back of my head, that this shirt will be no good tomorrow. My palm is hot, wet, my fingers sticky, but I keep going, dedicated to overstimulate myself like Levi said he would, I keep sucking short breaths through my teeth. My stomach shivers, and I jerk almost violently, a very, very sharp groan at the tip of my tongue as I come all over my hand and hem of my dear Sunbather shirt.

We both breathe in silent unison then, after that, the background buzz of a phone call trying to comfort me in my dirty deed. The panties are still bunched up in my fist. I shake like a leaf.

“Tuesday,” I say, out of breath. “I’ll see you on Tuesday.”

* * *

_Monday, 24 th. I ran very late for work today,_ my journal exclaims in a tidy first line. _Got on set disheveled like an animal and mindlessly drilled through the day under new executives. Coats today, thank god. My weak soul would shatter if this were to be another lingerie shoot._

_Marlo came home late. I washed my shirt in the sink with Dawn soap and let it dry out on his balcony before stuffing it in the crevices of my messy suitcase. Running the washer for just one shirt didn’t seem economical or practical in any way._

_Phone sex, new DLC._

_Marlo and I had lunch again. I met his friends. They asked if I’d be okay to come to a mutual friend’s gig that night, but I close shoots late and really want to get out of Washington early Tuesday morning. I want to go back home as soon as possible. It’s not just Levi now, it’s general exhaustion. I blank out during work and forget about any aspects of a private life until it all fumes down on me and glues me to Marlo’s leather couch with a glass of alcohol every night._

_Marlo’s lunch confession of the day is that he absentmindedly steals glasses from a bar just three blocks away. He told me how the owner tries chumming with him, so Marlo gets drinks, but he’s picked up the habit of taking the glass home in a state not all that sober. Three blocks away translates to a cigarette and a half long walk, so I get where he’s coming from with all that._

_Being with Marlo has begun to tire me out, so I feel glad this is my last day. He’s an entertaining man, I just wish he knew it’s healthy to stay silent._

_We had free time after lunch, so I was coerced into going cigarette shopping. Rare finds, rare finds! I copped Jade Camels, Kamel Reds, the original blend from 1913, and some thin vanilla cigars, Colts, I believe. A cherry Colt might’ve been one of my first cigarettes. I’ve got selective amnesia on this. I got a pack of Cobras for Levi and eyed a block of Camel No.9’s. The design was tempting, and I was overjoyed. This was the first time I’d seen Japanese cigarettes actually being sold to mortal men. Cobras can’t be found in Pennsylvania if you sought for them with a burning stick._

_Someone named Lydia interested in my work. On-set fluent flirting died down at my soapy attitude. I used to adore the name Lydia. You meet one rotten Lydia and it spoils the whole bunch._

* * *

I wake up drowsy on Tuesday morning and try to erase my dream imagery and lingering thoughts of finally driving home with a bad cigarette. You get those every other batch. It’s six and I’m bound to leave whenever I please, but what I’d love more than anything would be getting out as early as I can.

My wallet sings thick when I pat at it in the back pocket of my jeans. Marlo gets up early to get breakfast together, before I leave, and I figure I can last some more of his procreative talking and casual daydrinking. He treats us both to waffles and chia bowls. The food is good. The thought of home is better.

I leave later than initially planned, at ten. The drive home is mundane. I listen to Suite: Judy Blue Eyes on repeat, and realize this song has just as much artistic potential as The Ninth Symphony.

When I cross the border, the surroundings become comfortable. Music changes to sludge metal for a brief highway roll. I stop for gas and a cigarette at a drawback Sheetz. Day is sketching out sunny, so I roll the hood down, too.

My car winds down hot on our driveway before one o’clock.

The back door is open, like we tend to leave it, so I get inside through the glass panel. Once in, I put my keys on the kitchen island out of habit and tug at my coat.

The air smells like Febreze and cigarette smoke.

“Levi?” I call with no direction. “Are you home?”

No response. I didn’t await any. Karen’s car wasn’t in the driveway, and I know for sure he’s in school at this hour, but after the phone call it felt reasonable to check.

Did he smoke inside the house? We went over the smoking issue on his first night here; only birthdays or rare, rare occasions. I see cigarettes like any other vice humans partake in, be it porn, alcohol, drugs, gossiping, religion, but _mamá_ sees lung cancer and tuberculosis as the official and finalized death in the family. I’ve promised to keep this house cigarette-free, as did I to take ways around smoking in general. Good going at that with my cigarette intake. I get that she’s been out in Georgia, but they get home tomorrow, and will, without doubt, want to drop by for storage keys and whatever else. Levi knows this.

I don’t feel upset to any extent, I just feel confused. Leaning against the kitchen island, I text Levi.

He doesn’t read the text within minutes, so I stuff my phone in the back pocket of my jeans and get out on the driveway for my suitcase and the bag of lingerie that now seems shameful in scorching daylight. The pale pink of it mocks my whole being.

I dress down and get to the living room when my phone notifies he’s texted back.

A defensive “lol”. He continues typing.

The surge of texts suddenly ceases and I check my phone mid-Seinfeld episodes for the following half hour to make sure the zone’s not dead. My screen lights up next to my thigh when I’m fifteen minutes in a new episode.

Something in my stomach stirs every time people ghost my questions. Jean does this like it’d end global hunger.

* * *

I arrive minutes before his shift ends and start smoking the thin Colt cigar.

My day was leisurely spent watching movies and responding to e-mails. I scheduled a whole June month of business, but May seems charring and empty for now. May is free time I can but don’t want to afford. I don’t like having much time to kill, and opt to keep myself as busy as I can. Heartbreak habit. Bad habit. I’d assume I wanted to focus more on my newlywed lifestyle and learn how to operate with a teenager my slowed-down metabolism sex drive doesn’t know how to handle.

I sit on the hood of my car and smoke. My coat is on a holiday today; it’s warm.

At some point Levi’s silhouette swims into view through one of the restaurant’s windows. I’m surprised I recognize him through such a vague sheet of characterization—the arch of his neck, his light slouch. He talks to someone in the poor light of a corridor. Light hits his cheek. Shadow creases underneath his eye, pools by his low eyebrow. A childish stroke of an adolescent cheekbone trying to cut through the baby fat on his cheeks.

 _Levi has peach fuzz,_ I reminiscence, pulling at the cigarette. My eyes fall from the window to the asphalt of the parking lot. _Go ahead, man, kickstart a new degenerative ideology of dating people who are younger and insecure for personal gratification, self confidence, very good and energetic sex, and optionally just diminishing any sense you’ve had of what’s supposed to be a social misconception of an age gap too big. You senseless idiot._

It’s thrilling, being with someone who’s seventeen with a tail. He’s well underage in terms of alcohol law. Never been the one to date younger people due to incompatible levels of maturity, but Levi, while still a kid in his own sense and robust teenage edges, is older than me. Childhood mended him into some ruthless, ageless being is my guess. If you stitch my education and financial stability with his lifelong experience and silenced tragedy, we become the perfect base for a rich kid nihilist.

I’ve long accepted the fact everything he is only exists as a dreamy construct of my own mind. Nobody’s that good in practice. In theory, yes. Practice, never. But these rose-tinted glasses are on and won’t come off, and it doesn’t feel good being aware of it.

Halfway through the cigar I hear the door of the restaurant fly open. My eyes travel to the entrance, and I see him standing there, stunning as always, as forever, I think.

What he’s wearing is a white turtleneck. It says “VENGEANCE” in red gothic font. A black baseball cap. Signature thin chain. Cuffed mélange _slacks_.

Slacks!

God sent!

Levi unsurely sneaks his hands to the back pockets of his grey pants. He then lights a cigarette as he slowly steps towards me. Slower than usual, than his normal, hesitant feline pace. To look less like I’m predatorily waiting for my homecoming kiss, I pull my right knee to my chest and rest my chin on it.

“Oh, look at you,” I say, the skinny cigar stuck in the corner of my lips so I can play with the ties of my hi-tops. Smoke sneaks out with every spoken word. “You’re almost dressed up.”

He drags his feet a little. We keep eye contact until his thighs slide up against the bumper of my Impala, and hip brushes past my loosely swinging left leg. I stare him down from my position, taking in how streetlights make his lashes web out long shadows. Levi doesn’t speak a word still when I take a drag off the vanilla cigar and lean in to share.

We called it a shotgun kiss back in high school. High school stopped being a thing three years ago, and I don’t know if anyone uses such prehistoric terms now.

I notice his free hand feeling up my laid thigh with scornful pressure. Levi’s lips drag slow against the velvety skin of my cheek, and his tongue leaves a wet line across my jawline. His breath is cardamom and cigarettes. I don’t notice my eyes close until streetlights stop gnawing at my iris.

“You taste like vanilla sugar,” Levi whispers, nose brushing languidly against my small hoop earring. “Exciting.”

I take the sleek pack of cigars out of my pocket and shake it next to my face. “I got something for you, too.”

“What?”

“Japanese cigarettes.”

“Why must you delve into my nicotine cravings?” He murmurs, hand still on my thigh. His cigarette clings to a half-inch of ashes he sways too close to my khakis. Why I’m even wearing khakis is another conversation. “Are we going somewhere?”

“28 South, Broad Axe or Fuji.”

“The question was an indirect inquiry as to why you’re dressed up more than I am on a daily basis. You’re wearing khakis,” Levi points out. “Khakis are grand for ass sculpting.”

“Khakis,” I choke out. “An abomination. God’s rejected angel.”

“That’s likely in my job description,” he sourly says. “Seventeen, fallen angel, does jackshit for a living.”

“You stay within the angel amplitude” sounds too smug for the awe-filled look I give him, so I don’t say anything and lean in for a kiss instead.

Levi’s fingers blindly slide up the side stitching of my pants, over my hipbone, up along my waistline; all this travel just to straighten the collar of my shirt that’s undone anyway. “That looks good,” he says, having pulled off.

I act a fool for the sake of luring out remains of the Levi he was during our phone call. “What does?”

“This shirt.” I feel a finger pull at the top button keeping the linen acceptably undone. It gives out. “Nice button-down. I don’t see you wear anything like that.”

“Any idea what’s with us and parking lots?” I ask. “Why do we absolutely must do these things in parking lots, and strictly parking lots?”

“Exhibitionism,” Levi says and retrieves his hand. “God damned exhibitionism, I’ll tell you that. God looked past us when he gave his people grace and modesty, and he gave me fifteen pumps of forbidden greed for sucking dick in cars.”

“God, Levi, you can’t say that.”

“You being catholic won’t sew my mouth shut.” He smokes the rest of his cigarette between my thighs and drops the filter. “I’m not hungry. Are you?”

What I wish I could say burns the walls of my mouth, and Levi notices. Maybe it’s the foolish smile that splits my face, or how my eyes drop, who knows.

“God,” he says, mimicking my voice. “Nutritious, consumable food is what I’m talking about.”

“I don’t get why I haven’t been lathered in kisses yet,” I exclaim with fake exaggeration. “Acting like an idiot would normally attract sympathetic pecks or a hug, at the very least.”

“Two of my coworkers are about to leave and I don’t want them to see you.”

My chest suffers a weak insecurity jab. “Are you ashamed of me?”

Levi almost winces. “What? No. I heard them talk about Grindr during lunch. They’re gay.”

“How do I tie into this?”

“You cause a lot of problems by being attractive,” he simply says. “I won’t try to retell my volleyball team’s locker room talk.”

“So they do have a locker room?” I ask, exasperated.

“I needed an excuse to flash.”

We weigh in and decide we’re not hungry, the both of us, so we drive home listening to Lighthouse Keeper. I didn’t know Levi has seen Frank, so I’m surprised he knows the words to it.

The house still smells like Febreze and cigarettes when I walk in, and I throw Levi a nettled look behind his back. He kicks off his shoes and hangs his backpack by the door, that way dodging all my spiky glares.

“It stinks,” he murmurs. “I left the windows open, but it reeks like outright hell.”

“You never told me what happened,” I mention, backing off until my lower back is pressed against the kitchen island, and cross my arms.

Levi’s eyebrows knot under the now light strands of hair. “It’s a minor thing.”

“Look, you don’t have to tell me, but I’d kill to know.”

“It’s nothing, I’m just dealing with a lot. My—my parents called, asked if I was good and everything. Asked if I needed money.” He pauses. His hands are toying with each other. “I told them my godfather keeps my account running. They didn’t like that at all.”

“Did they say anything?”

“Yeah, nothing good. I shouldn’t have said anything, I think. Now I’ll get myself into all kinds of debt and bankruptcy. Join some Clockwork Orange rip-off gang so I can drink milk whenever I please.”

I lean back on my elbows. “You have a job and you have me.”

“What I won’t have is my last legible family member,” Levi shakily says and looks down. “If this goes down, I mean. If it does. I’m restricted from my real folks by law. That extends to everyone by blood.” Another suffocating pause. “Can’t say I don’t care about getting in trouble myself, but it’d really fucking suck if I got Kenny in some administrative bullshit.”

“Kenny, is it? Kenny, your godfather? That short for anything?”

“Kenneth,” he promptly says.

I recall bringing his money flow up to _mamá_. That, and her comical chest clutch at the price of his windbreaker.

“Would you really face serious financial issues if he stopped funding your lifestyle?” I bite back before I say “expensive lifestyle”, but then figure I might as well just inquire about that, too. “I tried to figure this out when you met my mom, but—why the expensive clothes?”

Levi looks a little unsettled. “It’s coping,” he then says. “I think it’s coping. I tell myself that. I do everything thick. That’s the only thing that reminds myself of how I once used to be when my parents were still around.”

“Overpriced things?” I unsurely ask.

“Yeah, overpriced things, yeah. I recognize and really—really despise materialistic values. I cling to things because there was a time in my life when I lost everything there was to lose.”

Over the warm tones of my kitchen, the wall he’s pressing himself back at seems cold. Levi’s hands are behind his back now, and he idly rocks back and forth on his heels. I suddenly see nothing but a child; no trace of what I once found to make him seem so mature and grown up.

“My dad liked to spend a lot of money,” he says. I barely hear it. “But he was humble. It’s hard to stitch together. He used that money for good cause and I really loved him for that, I thought that’s what makes a man. My mom, again, my mom liked high-end clothes. She was a model. Did you know that?”

“Mikasa mentioned it.”

“She was a model,” Levi dreamily repeats. “Everyone in the family said I take after her.”

“I don’t need pictures to know you do,” I whisper. “You’re irresistible.”

Levi looks up at me. The light from the glass-paneled terrace door embellishes how much he looks like a child still, with his mussed up hair, unsure, developing posture, compliant eyes.

It’s hard to raise yourself, so he clings to whom he thinks is closest to a parent. His natural wish—to be sought after—is like a low tide pull. Levi can talk independence all he wants, but it’s not easy to conceal being starved of parental affection.

This makes me feel terrible.

I reach out with one hand and Levi curls into my arms like a fern leaf. His cheek is pressed solid against my chest, same as his folded arms, his fists, and I rest my chin atop his head.

“I’m here for you,” I soothingly whisper, my hand on his scalp. “I’ll be here for you no matter what, okay? I’ve had my spare time being left behind, I know what it’s like, and I never want you to feel this way.”

“I’m a bad person.”

“You’re not a bad person. I love you.”

He presses his forehead hard against my sternum at the same time I press a kiss against his wavy hair.

“I love you, too,” Levi says, for the first time ever.

* * *

_Wednesday, 25 th of April. Woke up early for Reiner’s podcast thing. No sign of any fires asides from fiery downtown garbage containers and tires. The hour long patrician music session was so good I gave a few tracks multiple listens after writing them down._

_I arranged a meeting with Joseph at the police station in high hopes Teddy won’t be on patrol so I can get both men in one room. Last night’s conversation with Levi left me vengeful. This sorority of problems that braid out from the birthday fire are interfering with his life more than it should, and it’s hard to watch without impeding. My passive lifejacket method of solving this is the documentary, as far as I’m getting with that now. I’m grasping at fucking straws at this point._

_Nothing has happened since the major fire at Wallace’s. I’m beginning to think the arsonists took an L with their training wheels. I think the Wallace fire was never meant to go as public as it did. To my joy, however, Joseph hasn’t been talking about it, either. Mikasa sometimes mentions it over the phone. She says all dinner conversations rotate around arson. I’d imagine it annoys the hell out of her._

_Levi left me early. I stayed over in the sunroom last night and didn’t let him go this morning without a dozen of loving kisses and promises I’ll be his for the afternoon, if he wants that. He said he does._

_For some reason, it’s become hard to let go of him. I’ll force full blame onto yesterday’s conversation. I feel like a parent. I feel a natural, parental need to comfort him. It’s always been present since I vividly recall making a journal entry on just this, on wanting to be his person of trust, which is a status I believe I’ve obtained, but the feeling is coming on strong now that I’m beginning to border where Levi’s adult façade drops._

_Because of this, I found it hard to fall asleep last night. The real verity of his age is my impending doom. With each passing day that grim weight of realization shovels on a few pounds. I now get that the phone call was largely all talk and he’s not what he sometimes portrays he is. Teenage nervousness and insecurity take over chronically, just like they do with everyone else his age, and I’d been blind to it up until now. Whatever the car head was, a miracle of some sort, a gimmick, I think it scared him to face the factuality of an actual, intimate relationship in which both sides participate to some extent. I don’t mind. I want him to take his time. I’m all bluff, too, with my vocal vulgarities and fucking people raw on the kitchen island. The kitchen island is too high for someone to be fucked on it, anyway. It’s made out of marble. Marble is fucking cold._

* * *

I pull up at the police station before noon.

The station itself is a brick building the size of my house, very robust at the edges, very simple. It does have paneled windows, large windows; they recently moved from the old station that was formerly a church. “Incredibly ironic” is what I always tell Joseph, since all saints from above must’ve been biting their nails at the peer monstrosity of drugs that went in and out of the station on the daily.

The day stands in great contrast against yesterday, as if someone pulled the light switch. For yesterday’s expensive sun today comes with an army of intimidating clouds, an ashen horizon and occasional sizzle. I figure I won’t smoke before meeting Joseph, even though he knows I do; just for the sake of staying dry. Superdry.極度乾燥(しなさい)

I linger around my car for a second, and then pull my stationary setup from the backseat.

The inside of this building is warm and stuffy, smells like watered-down coffee and Arby’s sandwiches, distinctively of paperwork, ink and sweat. The radio in someone’s block is playing Light My Fire, unmistakably by The Doors.

Joseph is sitting back on his desk, talking to a pair of officers that regularly patrol on 81, so I patiently wait it out and greet them when they pass me on their way to the door. They didn’t look any less than surprised seeing me here. I don’t know how I feel about that.

“Good morning,” I say and walk up to the desk. Joseph slides off of it to shake my hand.

“Morning,” he takes back. “Mind if we take this to a more secluded area? This isn’t exactly front desk, but I’m not supposed to discuss open cases, and I’m on lunch break, so I’ll break bread with you, if that’s fine.”

“I don’t mind that at all.”

I’ve only been to the new station once and that was on an open day, so where the sheriff leads me is solely unknown. We enter a room with a low ceiling and few desks, some arbitrary vending machines and a fridge. There’s a whiteboard by the door with some abbreviations and one-liners. The floor is tiled yellow and it grazes at my eyes. I’m asked to close the door behind me, but it’s automatic, so I don’t really get that and am perplexed.

“My pet peeve: missing lunch. Mikasa never has lunch, Karen either. Never pieced together the reason behind that,” Joseph says as he stalks across the room for a steaming Styrofoam cup of what I think is coffee. On the same material cheap-looking plate ends up a sandwich from the fridge, a tray of baby carrots, pack of trail nut mix and mustard. Why mustard? I don’t know.

I’m given enough time to pull myself together parallel to him putting his lunch together.

“You won’t mind me recording this here, will you?” I set the stabilizer next to my newfound seat as Joseph takes the opposite side on one of the lacquered tables. “For the documentary. The shot doesn’t necessarily ask for your face in it.”

The previously heard Light My Fire eerily plays through the wall as he pops a carrot in his mouth. His expression is carved stern. “You’re really reaching with your privilege, you know that?”

“I’m sucking up all I can being best friends with every officer I can name, so, yes, probably.” I keep reminding myself to stay within composure. A sign of weakness would strip my rights to get any kind of information. I was lucky to sound so professional and put-together during the phone call. “Can I record you?”

“Yes, Eren.”

It takes me less than a few minutes to set up the stabilizer and input settings for this kind of pale green lighting. I’m trying to keep a Sam Esmail tone to my shots and angles now that I understand where I want the documentary to go. Reaching for an obscure, absurd thematic has brought my attention to interesting techniques and color relationships.

This still shot turns out to frame a skeevy image of the sheriff’s upper torso impaled by a distant LED ceiling lamp. I am overjoyed by the outcome and accidental symbol play. My usage of “I am overjoyed” will soon reach its absolute peak.

“How is Levi?” Joseph asks as he watches me fidget with the camera.

“He’s good,” I vacantly say. “I made him sign up for a spoken word night at school. Straight-A kid, by the way. His report cards from a year ago are nothing like right now, I feel like that’s progress of some sort.”

“You’re not babysitting him, though, right? He’s not clingy?”

“He manages things on his own. I help with certain deeds.” I almost choke on that. Now wouldn’t be the best time to chat about our relationship. Or, really, now’s the _best_ time—I’d spare myself some pain and wouldn’t have to outright shit on my family name being driven through town in a police car, I’m right here, at some post-interrogation dining room I’d gladly also die in.

My palms feel significantly sweatier than before. I think the stress is taking its toll on me.

I press the record button. “Tape’s running,” I say, to steer Joseph away from this topic, but he’s stuck on it like some ungodly bumper sticker.

“Any breakdowns recently, anything?” He asks, leaning on his forearms. I notice the elastic band is around his wrist still. Mikasa said some about fire range trauma, though it puzzles me how wrists could get sprained at fire ranges. “My brother called past Sunday. Levi’s been stirring up things he really shouldn’t, is why I’m asking.”

“Yeah?” I pretend to be focused on the running film, though I suspect this likely concerns Levi’s bank account.

“Adoption is layered in laws,” Joseph begins, pulling ham out of his sandwich. This seems to distract him. “Oh, lord. An extensive amount of ham is what I call real American cuisine. It’s almost deceiving, buying sandwiches. High state tax is all ham money. I pay for ham.”

“Adoption is layered in laws,” I push him back on the prospect.

“My bad.” He breaks off a piece of bread and dips it in mustard. “See… A child’s future stands on the circumstance of being given or taken away. This plays in the familial bond they’re restricted to, meaning authorities can allow contact or completely prohibit it.”

“I take that Levi’s circumstance was tragic.”

Joseph nods. “His parents slipped in blow around the time he turned ten. Reasonable age for painting things more or less black and white. He gained recognition they weren’t completely in the clear, there were family scandals and other things filed as marginally destructive. I think he was taken out of school for a good time, too. If Levi ever tells you it was good, put a dollar down. He’s lying. It was never good. During some week of sobriety, Kuchel and Adam decided Levi needs godparents.” He pauses to drink the black coffee that stings my nostrils with bitterness. “Levi’s mother had a brother she sought to be fitting for this role.”

 _Kuchel_ , I note. _Adam. But I got it on tape, anyway._

“Kenneth was in no way better than the two of them, his wife for the worse, but his income was stable and he still resides in a four bedroom apartment in Oregon as far as I know. He’s an actuary. His wife works regional service management. Well-off to day’s end, drives a Legend. I think Kuchel understood they were walking a thin line between having and losing their son, and this was more of a desperate call to save Levi’s future, not reading white lines more often than bedtime stories.”

“Touché,” I say.

“I’m paid to be like this,” Joseph barks. “The gist of all this is that contact with Kenneth—uncle Kenny, let me lose the eloquence—was restricted to ones and zeroes. Don’t know why, won’t ask why. Just is. Levi allegedly gets monthly income transferred from Kenny’s account, which isn’t supposed to happen taken any familial bond was asked to be cut on legal terms.”

My mouth forms a crooked line. “By whom?”

“My brother.”

“Why?”

“Self-explanatory, I’d say,” Joseph sternly finishes his talking along with the baby carrots.

I sit back and cross my legs. We share an unsettling minute of silence so that I recognize some 80’s synthpop hit through the wall of the presumable cafeteria.

My camera must feel betrayed getting footage this anticlimactic.

“Isn’t he old enough to decide who he prefers to stay with?” I curiously ask in-between Joseph’s sandwich bite. “He’s almost eighteen.”

He chews through his thought process. “Almost eighteen. Problem is, it doesn’t matter past eighteen anymore. He’s legally reached adulthood then. Then, Eren, no authorities care.”

“Do you?”

It’s visibly a jab at his righteousness. “Can’t say my answer is affirmative,” Joseph replies through his thickening moustache. “He’s a good kid, he’s good, but he’s not my kid. Every attempt to set Levi straight has been a failure on my behalf. I hope he gets through his teenage years with ease and gets a chance to turn things for the better. I pity my brother if the outcome is any different.”

I’m allusively upset.

To hide my bubbling, well-concealed anger, I get up and stalk off to the coffee machine.

“Hope you don’t pity me getting police station coffee,” I say over my shoulder.

Before Joseph can realize I’m being cutting, the door opens to a female police officer and Teddy, both of which poorly conceal surprise upon the lit camera and me pushing several buttons on the machine with that trademark perpetual scowl. I meekly wave at both newcomers, clueless of what else to do.

My camera softly beeps and automatically ends the running clip.

“Concealed camera carry permit,” Joseph comments, his chin pointing towards my Sony FS5. Teddy laughs. “Ral, Claire, morning.”

The woman is a strawberry blonde, lean underneath her navy uniform. A thick belt hugs her dainty waist like it’s hell-bent on snapping her in half, and unlike Teddy, whose feet are clad in chucks, she’s sporting a pair of lace-up boots that reach her shins. I find that troublesomely hot. Going by the last name of Ral, I feel like I should know her.

Her lower lip curls in a knowing greeting. Hazel eyes shine, they’re doe-like, almost, and when she nods, her blunt cut hair swings with the movement.

Teddy hooks his fingers behind the belt framing his bulging stomach.

“Eren, you can’t be serious,” he says and points at the camera. “Sheriff’s stuffing his face and y’all record like that.

“Dead-on,” I respond, watching coffee trickle inside the cup. “He’s been talking about his nephew for fifteen minutes, it’s a police force cover-up mechanism, I’m telling you. Nephews, Teddy. It’s the nephews.”

“That bluegrass misanthropist what’s-his-name you drivin’ around?”

“Levi, yeah.” Bluegrass misanthropist what’s-his-name. He’s going to _love_ this.

The cup is two thirds full when the machine stops its buzz with a click. I get a wary-looking carton of milk from the fridge and check the date. Seems good still, but I turn to Joseph.

“This still good?” I ask.

“I don’t know, I take my coffee black. Ask Petra.”

My torso twists towards Teddy. “Petra?”

“Officer Petra,” Teddy says. “This one right here.” And he pats at the woman’s shoulder.

“Oh, man. Sorry,” I murmur, running my hand through my messy hair. “I’m Eren and sorry. Is this milk good?”

She nods. I take she’s a shy one.

“Have I seen you around? I feel like I’ve seen you around.” My voice is mundane when I ask this, preoccupied with the coffee. Milk paints my beverage the sand dollar color of Levi’s hair, and Petra hesitates with her response. I turn back to her, Styrofoam cup seeping aroma.

She’s looking at Joseph and her facial expression clearly reads “man, this tool”. I feel odd for a second and raise a confused finger close to my waist.

Petra reacts. She backs off to the whiteboard, starts writing, and I get it without much further ado. Petra’s mute.

 **“I rent 44,”** says the middle of the whiteboard.

“Okay. I felt like I knew your last name.”

She wipes at her writing and replaces it with a: **“I see you at church. Wednesdays, sometimes.”**

“Do you know my parents?” I ask. Teddy and Joseph are very invested in our audibly one-sided conversation; Ted’s in my seat, now, and the sheriff has comfortably packed his feet atop another chair.

**“You’re the Jaegers’ son? Yes.”**

“Eren, tell ‘er about your movie,” officer Teddy encourages from my left. “Petra, he’s shootin’ a movie on them April fires, you hear? The Jaeger boy’s a filmmaker, he’s our next Wes Anderson, our young Tarantino with them Ful-Vue glasses. If I ever seen some other kid more full of film, brick my head, Petra.”

“I hate Tarantino,” I mention.

He waves it off with a flick of his wrist. “Lies. Y’all love Tarantino.”

 **“Kill Bill is OK,”** Petra writes. Wipes it with her palm. **“Tell us about the movie.”**

I’m being coerced. I am constantly in a state of fear of coercion unless already in the process itself.

“The movie…” I begin, but cut myself short. “Wait, I need this recorded. This is my first time fleshing out the concept.”

“Talks like a bloody artist, dun he?” Teddy grins at Joseph.

I move the tripod to form an angular shot towards the corner of the room and check light sensitivity by waving my arm in front of the objective. It’s fine if this footage ends up looking bad—I can take just the audio.

“Alright, well—the documentary.” I take a seat on a table between both policemen and Petra. “It’s a documentary. The film festival exclusively wanted documentaries; wild guess it’s to challenge annual participants like me. The idea was born on my best friend’s birthday when the event was announced by this girl we know, by Hitch. Bland day, regular schedule, editing class at South Hagerstown high school. He jabs at me all of a sudden, my friend, he says, hey, listen to the radio. The host is talking some of an abandoned shed near the woods. My friend then mentions the same thing happened on my birthday, 30th of March, old Kelly’s barn—you know Kelly.” I point at Ted. “Says it burned down. So the one fire that lashed out on the 30th of March, or the morning of the following day, I can’t put my finger on this, it moves me a little. I zone out for a second and think, Christ, this is a sign. This must be a sign, there’s really no other way consecutive coincidences like this occur. So I clung to high hopes whoever does this keeps doing it and I get enough material to work with, and I was heeded, I think, because it happened again.”

“The Wallaces,” Teddy knowingly tells Petra, and her blonde locks bounce at another nod.

“Yeah. Yeah, the Wallace farm. I got such terrifying film that morning. I don’t know how to splice it all together now, through all that terror. Really scared the shit out of me.”

“Let me ask something.” Joseph joins in, probably cue to my rough language. “What’s the root idea?”

“I don’t know,” I admit.

“How will y’all present the movie?” Teddy asks. “You have some content you can toss around, far as I know, but no real suspects, no nothing. What you gon’ do?”

“Yeah, that’s where I’m stuck.” I drink from my cup. It tastes stale. “I dug a hole for myself with this great image of a put-together, home wrecking movie. I have a clue where I want this to go. How I want this to go. If you get whoever is behind this, be it a single scapegoat or a whole herd, you let me do an interview, maybe two, and I botch it with the stills I have to make the documentary as legible as I can. You get credit. You also get a physical copy and probably kind words. Sound like a deal?”

“Yes,” says Teddy.

“No,” says Joseph.

 **“Hire an actor,”** writes Petra.

I watch her for a brief while.

“Not that bad of an idea,” I finally say.

“Ral gets promoted,” Teddy snickers. “Joseph, kick up ‘er salary.”

“In my vision, this person—or people, it’s still unclear, it could be anyone—in my vision they’re a pyromaniac,” I silently say. “Tame, maybe, really watered down, but I imagine this person does it for self-indulgence. See, all of these fires up until the Wallace fire had been—they’d been acts of third-degree arson. Abandoned buildings and such. They’re regular. First-degree is occupied, second is unoccupied, and the Wallace farm was steadily on the second stage. So I have this speculation no one gets any sufficient gain from this, asides from momentary pleasure for a mind ill-at-ease.”

Expression as content as I can force it, my hands drop back at the coffee cup and I stare down into it.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Joseph says. “That’s good speculation.”

“Yeah, I know, I’ve been reading about this. Levi threw an idea about firefighters, hence his dad…” I gesture towards Joseph. “Your brother, he’s the fire chief. Levi said it’s not all that rare to have pyromaniacs under the fire department.”

Joseph watches me with an unreadable expression. “Levi has some firefighter experience,” he then comments. “I wouldn’t reach that far, however. He’s just seventeen.”

“He can be seventeen and know what he’s on about.”

“Tell ‘im what we had a chat about,” Ted adds. “That’ll shimmy his big sheriff pants right off.”

I smile, but it falters. “We figured out it’s not just one sole person now. Ted said kids can’t be doing this, but I’m beginning to believe middle schoolers really target garbage containers and car graveyards. Nuisance fires, you know, anything minor they can live up to. Several individual people could be doing the rest, maybe just one person, maybe a couple. Maybe I’m reaching. I don’t know why we thought of that. I still think it makes remote sense. Every incident involved an abandoned place, and then the Wallaces come in. It plays a different tune.”

Teddy’s fingers tap a medley on the table. “And that, senior Ackerman, that all’s your fault, sir, oh, sir. Ya went live and stunk up the whole shebang.”

“You were there, too, Theodore, bricking yourself on live television,” Joseph calmly fires back.

“Think my rationale don’t know the smell of what shit comes after disobedience? Ain’t I ever so shaken over some shed.”

 **“Ted 1:0 José,”** now says the whiteboard, though we all know Ted’s exactly _that_ shaken over some shed.

* * *

Joseph issues public interrogation on the fire department service while I’m still at the station. He lets me get a shot of the call and hands me a sticky with the local fire chief’s phone number.

I am not at all overjoyed. This is getting too big for my film festival documentary.

Levi gets home before four and it’s pouring rain.

I’m downstairs in the living room, listening to CAN and analyzing the clips I got, but I could recognize the front door’s click through ambient drone and fifty simultaneous thunderstorms.

His raincoat flashes in the hallway without a greeting, so I get my legs up on the coffee table and assume he’s in some mood. I’m getting good at this. Spending so much time around a teenager puts me in the same mindset, and while that’s useful around Levi, I’m beginning to sound like an idiot to the general public. Jean called me on my way home. I extensively used Levi’s vocabulary, and he chose to comment on it. “Your good syntax is out the window,” he said. I backlashed for a second, and then he went on: “Sex is brain damage, I know. I’m the only one who knows.”

My laptop is heating up my thighs, but I don’t pay attention to it and instead watch Levi’s raincoat-clad figure slide up to the fridge. The hood of the jacket drapes over his soaked hair, the bulb of the refrigerator paints his cheeks pale yellow.

“My day was good, thanks,” I finally break. His reserved attitude piques my interest.

Levi turns to me. “Hi,” he says, and turns to the fridge again.

“Why do you look like that?”

“Like what?” He tries peeling the raincoat off. “Like a dog bred with Audrey Hepburn? I don’t know.”

“Something happen?”

Levi abruptly sits down in the same spot he’s standing, right in front of the fridge. “I think I’m fired.”

“What?” I close my purring laptop and push it to the side so I could get up. “You’ve only been hired for a week.”

“I didn’t stay in during lunch break and drove to get gas,” Levi begins, the raincoat now off. His white t-shirt underneath is just as soaking wet as his hair, and the blackwork on his shoulder can be seen through the sheer cotton. “I don’t know, I was feeling weird, I’m getting worked up over things and the parent issue, and everything is just really fucking inadequate as of late _._ Anyway—anyway. I drove to get gas, got wrong gas, realized it after the first five gallons, and pulled out like an idiot.”

I’m in such good of a mood I almost fail to refrain from commenting on his pullout capability.

“Happens to the best of us,” I say, instead.

“I have this severe fear of gasoline,” Levi says. “I feel like, when it’s on me, even a drop, I’ll catch on fire and burn to a crisp.”

“You got gas on yourself?”

“Tons?” His voice jumps an octave higher. “I tried cleaning up in the gas station bathroom, I thought I had enough time for that, but ended up reeking like a mechanic and looking like a Spencer’s salesman caught mid-crisis. My manager laid me off, saying she gets it, that it’s one of my episodes. I’d told her about that, but it felt like she was mocking me.”

 _“Muy caro,_ you really are stressed,” I worriedly say. “She was being considerate. You’re not fired, just worried.”

Levi just lies down on his back in the middle of the kitchen.

“Come kiss me,” he says.

I get up, stuffing my hands in the back pockets of my jeans, and walk up the carpeted stairs to find my reason to live sprawled out on the parquet. My feet poke at his ribcage as I loom over him like some grim reminder of existential pain, holding my glasses up at the bridge.

The strong smell of gas reaches my nose like whiplash. “Ew.”

“Ew, yourself.” A ring-covered hand sneaks up my calf, tugs at my jeans. “Get down, boy.”

I step over his waist, both feet on each side of his chest now. This defies grace by any angle laws, though I get to see Levi’s face rid of hair, more round and glistening from the rain. He looks up at me, eyes mischievous.

“What a view,” he says.

I help him up for a warm, tight embrace, and bury my nose in his hair. Along with the condescending gasoline smell, his damp hair holds just the saltiest ting of smoke.

“Do the Cobras smell this bad?” I whisper, breathing out harshly through my nose to block out the stench.

“I think so.”

“You smoked with gas on yourself?”

“I'm disturbed. I’m depressed. I'm inadequate.” He suddenly pulls off me. “I got it all!”

I choke back laughter. “This is not how you quote Seinfeld.”

I offer showing him the footage I got after he showers and fill my journal meanwhile. The running music works as a grand distraction, I realize, a few lines in, so I drop the idea and just wait for him to get back. Levi seems to be my only form of entertainment these days, ever since Jean left.

My eyes run across the carpeted living room, linger on framed fine prints I got from David Egan’s Night Landscapes, Angelika’s 2008 paintings from my parents’ trip to Guatemala, my college diploma and bass guitar I haven’t touched since high school. It’s there for visual depiction of how deep and interesting I am, even though my milestone and simultaneous peak was learning the bass line to Schism. I often dream of being able to play the guitar to impress people and improve my prestige in the online community that basically operates like a high school social hierarchy anyway.

When I catch myself staring up at the kitchen’s wall clothes hanger my bomber jacket is on for longer than a clothes hanger deserves, I realize the bag of lingerie is gone.

My stomach floods with hot heat, and it oddly ties in with the jarring buzz of the boiler downstairs that signals Levi is showering.

I spend torturous fifteen minutes frozen where I’m sitting, because I just so happen to _know_ I saw the bag there last time I was downstairs, and its bothersome disappearance struck upon Levi’s arrival—so I’m either in for a treat, or have selective loss of memory and the bag is upstairs, in my room, safe within the confines of my closet.

“Eren?” Levi yells from what I guess is the sunroom.

“Yeah?”

“Can you come in for a second?”

I get up more than hastily and jump three steps at a time when faced the kitchen staircase. Through the short hall that leads to his bedroom, I palm at my chest to ease the palpitations my heart is going through.

The picture in my mind paints Levi in pale champagne knickers and sheer white thigh highs glued to his long, fit legs; I imagine a lace bodysuit fighting for color dominance against his ivory skin, a silk basque gnawing at his toned waist, a frilly thigh garter belt cutting right through the softness of his inner thigh, and I think, god, I think seeing this in flesh would affirm my faith in anything seraphic.

When I swim into view behind the doorframe of the softly colored, airy sunroom, hands shyly on the hardwood panel, I am convinced this is the most godlike a man can look.

Levi sits on the edge of his king-sized bed wearing all but a pair of white shorts cut right at the high arch of his waist. His chest bare, shaded blue from the afternoon light of a thunderstorm, it rises in soft breaths, milky skin taunt by the long scar and black effort of a cover-up. The caramel hair reaches past his chin, wet, slicked to one side, drops of water trickle down his neck and chest, get caught up in his thin, golden chain, and the shorts do all in their vicinity to soak it up.

I lose feeling in my shoulders; they slouch almost accidentally, and I find myself physically pulled to the only boy I think I’ll ever love this much.

Softly, slowly, I drop to my knees in front of him, and let my head fall against his right thigh.

“This will kill me,” I say, looking up at him. “I hope you’re aware.”

From where I sit, the sight is priceless. Levi’s shorts gauntly hug his hips. Silk shines at the higher points of his body, his hipbones and the arch of his barely covered cock. Muscle definition makes its way through as the fabric clings to his tight core. My languid hand sneaks on his thigh, hovers above the warm inside of it, waiting for Levi’s approval, which is given by his ringed fingers sliding in my hair.

I drag light lines across his length up to his clothed stomach, let my fingers curl at his waist as I grip it, give it a squeeze to feel his hot skin through seemingly cold material. The feeling fuels me. I sit straight again, both hands on each side of his waist now, eyes on his shuddering stomach. He breathes out, excited.

Just about ready to bury my face in his crotch, I barely refrain when he takes his hand off my head, and look up, confused.

“There’s more,” Levi says.

My eyes flutter close, and I kiss his thigh I’ve been leaning on. “I don’t need more.”

“I want you to take pictures of me.”

“Digital?” I instinctively ask.

“No, no. No, I want Polaroids,” he says, caressing my chin. “I want them to stay with you.”

This is like a promise ring of the century. Polaroid nudity.

Wondering where I’d put the film for my Polaroid camera in the very back of my head, main prospect being his stunning body, I sit back while Levi stands; we do a comic, aligned seesaw motion.

It’s even better when he’s standing. The shorts rolled up by just an inch because he’d sat down, and now they hunch at his upper thighs in a way that makes my mouth water. The ends lightly flare out, but the waist is tight, making his hips appear wider; making him even more desirable, if that’s humanly possible.

“I’ll get the camera,” I faintly say, getting up, wishing myself godspeed and grace on my way out.

The camera ends up being on the backseat of my car, I conclude ten minutes of rummaging later, with Levi sitting on the kitchen countertop by the sink, in silk shorts still, drinking my iced Rumchata. His look is now amped up by the fur coat I bought on the day of the Wallace fire a week ago. He looks posh.

It’s late afternoon, it’s raining, hard.

I take a tryout candid of him on the counter.

“I take that you’re just as bad at being a photographer as you are good at making movies,” he complains in between sips. “I wasn’t ready.”

“That’s what candids are for. You’re not supposed to be ready.” I leave the picture on the table to develop. “Pictures like this are more organic, with a flow, you know? With movement and energy.”

“You’ll just beat off to them, why care how organic they are?”

I heartily laugh, but he’s got an unbreakable point.

“This coat doesn’t smell good,” Levi suddenly says. “I get it’s fake fur, but it smells like roadkill. Are you getting this dry cleaned? You could bring my suede jacket, too. Please.”

“I’ve got to figure out on what fucking occasion I’m going to wear it before I pay a million for dry cleaning a fur coat.”

“My graduation party.”

“You’re having a graduation party? When?”

“Start of June,” he says, pulling at the elastic waistband of the shorts. “And my graduation is around that time, too. It’d mean the world to me if you came. All I want is at least one person to acknowledge I actually beat high school.”

“I’ll try to make it.”

“Thanks.” He finishes the _horchata_. “Film visionary, tell me: what’s the best lighting for modesty-stripped pictures I’m willing to leave behind as a breadcrumb trail?”

I still, eyes on the counter, thinking. “The sunroom, I think,” I then say. “But outside works, too.”

“It’s raining.”

“But it looks good. The camera will pick up the cobalt blue of a storm. Besides, if you stay in the coat, that’s one way to get rid of the smell.”

“Figures. Well, I’m off, then.” Levi slides off the counter, the heavy fur dragging along. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

I pour some Rumchata for myself, too, and manage to finish the glass by the time he’s back.

 _Jesus Christ,_ I think, but end up saying out loud. What he’s wearing now is a white body.

It’s lace and it’s see-through.

It’s really see-through.

Levi leans against the counter, ankles crossed, left side of the coat pushed behind his back to reveal a sturdy hip. The stitching across his chest indicates where breasts are supposed to be, but the size of the body is so small the cutout flattens out tight against his sternum. I remember this piece on someone on set. It didn’t look as good, not nearly as good; like nothing at all.

A fine trail of hair runs down from his navel to fade into a dark triangle of pubic hair, and I notice he hasn’t tucked his cock back; it’s there, semi-hard, and I can’t stop staring.

“I feel like a whore,” Levi announces.

I still gape. "You look great.”

“Do you have pesky neighbors who might call the cops on us? I’m ready for Joseph to see me crossdress as a Russian prostitute for my boyfriend’s voyeurism tendencies.”

I blindly put the camera on the countertop, eyes salvaging all I can get, and take a step closer. He looks good in this, he looks astounding, and I wish lingerie on men would be normalized to a very large extent. Shaky hands dripping with curiosity, I slide my arm around his waist, fingers moving lower to reach the small of his back, and he voluntarily steps closer. My stomach meets his.

“Currently torn between ripping this off and fucking you in it,” I whisper, running my free thumb along his lower lip. The effect is what I desired; Levi breathes out hard through his nose, and leans in, pressing his lips against my throat. Why he’d wear cologne on a late Wednesday afternoon isn’t a priority question to be answered, because I’m lured in by it nonetheless; it hits my head and overloads my senses, and both my hands travel down to grab at his ass.

Levi bites down at the motion.

“That’s softer than I thought,” I audibly wonder, too focused on his tongue working circles on my neck to think before speaking. “Levi, we could do the pictures first. It’s getting dark.”

He kisses his way up to my lips, pulling me down by my hair. With his other hand, he guides mine down his stomach, down South, where it’s hotter, and my palm meets a now obvious erection.

“How’s that for softer than you thought?” Levi asks, pushing his hips onto my hand.

The lace fabric is stretched tight over his cock, so I can’t get a decent grip, but my palm still works a nice couple of strokes. Levi lifts his leg to the side, rests his foot on the stretcher of the lounge chair by the counter, giving my hand space and mobility. My fingers roam wherever they want to.

He’s panting against my mouth at this point, and I’m hard.

“Pictures,” I weakly say, kissing him chastely, asking for godspeed once more as I pull away.

Levi takes a collected breath in loss of my kisses and nods, combing at his damp hair.

In the sunroom, I pull back all of the auburn drapes I’d given him before to let more of the smoky rainfall light in. The camera has flash, it works brilliantly, so that’s another way out if we lose natural light source.

Levi spins around in his office chair behind me. “Recommend music that goes with this.”

“Chances Are by Johnny Mathis,” I say over my shoulder. Not sure what he means by “this”, but I’d recently stumbled upon Mathis, and I like his sound. “I've become so obsessed with oldies. The Mello Kings, The Sky Liners, The Platters. Kind of wish there was a club dedicated to the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s, but solely music and other things, like the vehicles and apparel.”

“I can second that.”

“Are you ready?”

“I was born ready,” he says.

Levi walks past me, aided by the dreamy song, and lies down on his side. Partially. His chest faces the mattress, but the hips have a mind of their own, leaving his body in an agonizingly attractive twist. It’s lewd, almost. Everything about this is. The fur coat slides off his shoulder again, showcasing the round curve of his ass, the tattooed arm with surprising muscle definition and a golden cuff beneath his bicep; it glows softly in the rain’s light, reflecting just barely on Levi’s skin.

Wrists crossed underneath his resting chin, he looks up at me. “Is this good?”

“You look like a wet dream,” I lowly say. “It’s good.”

I take the picture.

It seems like Levi had certain poses and angles in mind. The first few pictures were purely under his direction. Interesting. Pretty exotic, too. If I thought I was losing my mind over Gone Fishing, watch me beat myself against the cushioned wall of a mental institution once these develop. In the most recent one of them, he sits on the edge of the bed, legs spread, leaning back on his elbows with a vacant stare outside the open window. The shadow play in it is wonderful. Every ridge of his teenage body, every bump is so emaciated. This one was more of a candid, and it turned out to be my favorite. I told him candids are the best.

When I turn away from the lightening pictures, he’s still in his position, and his eyebrows are furrowed. If I had my journal by hand, I’d probably toss some lines on how he looks like a baroque prince and how badly I want my cock down his throat again.

“What are you thinking about?” I silently ask, leaning back against the desk.

Levi’s silent for a while. Rain knocks at the windows like the biggest nuisance of my life.

“Going outside,” he says. “I like rain.”

“We can do that.”

“I’ll get something first.”

I’m left alone in the sunroom with sinful photographs and a hard-on. From the sound of it, Levi’s went upstairs, to my room, and I try to piece together what is it he needed.

He comes back, then, with knotted black rope slung over his shoulder, and smiles like May sun itself.

I wheeze. The rope imitates an aphrodisiac.

“Why would you do this to me?” I finally ask, after a short state of shock; clearly feeble now.

“Because I read your journal, asshole.”

My lips part and I squint just slightly so. This is further on emphasized by a gradual tilt of my head to really pronounce how disappointed I am.

“You should see your face right now.” He laughs. It’s hard to stay this composed when he’s smiling. I don’t see Levi belt out in laughter very often, or ever, really—it’s a sight. “I only read on Friday to when you got back.”

I frown. “I’m going to bed.”

“The hell you’re not.” Levi throws my rope on the mattress. “Help me get this on. I need to spoon-feed you proof I’m not teenage nervousness and insecurity, bitch.”

“That really stuck, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, it did.”

“So don’t lurk, bitch,” I say.

There is nothing more satisfying than pulling knots on a real body in the melodic cue of Slint’s Spiderland. Good Morning, Captain eerily fills the room, mixes with the melodic sound of rain, and seems to have a certain effect on Levi. He taps at his thighs to the rhythm of the bass line, wearing all but the white body and now a double coin harness. A month ago, I wouldn’t have imagined my 26th of April to look like this. Now, I feel like this is the least of our sexual capability, and I’d be a horrible, horrible liar if I said it doesn’t excite me just one bit.

“I’m done,” I announce around five minutes later, running my palm across all tweaked knots. I check the rope tightness at every soft patch of his skin to avoid burns. Levi shivers when my fingers hook behind the harness around his thighs.

“It feels incredible,” he says.

“It _looks_ incredible. You look good in this.”

“Hand me the coat.” I receive a pat at my stomach. “Let’s go.”

I put on his raincoat for good measure and fair exchange. It’s a little tight in the arms, but otherwise fits great. Levi turns up in brown leather combat boots, white crew socks peeking out at the edge—because it’s thematic, he says—and I end up with black Vans slip-ons, because I’m lazy.

The downpour is heavy. Everything drips wet, the terrace included, and it’s slippery. I guess it’s pure luck I have a mountable hood for the lens, otherwise the camera would be dead within minutes.

It’s common knowledge soaked white fabric turns sheer. If it’s lace and never meant to be decent clothing, the effect is tantalizing. The body Levi’s wearing is just like that. It almost gets behind the color of his skin, and he looks naked.

There is no decency in this photo shoot.

There is no decency in this relationship.

The fur coat droops under heavy rain. Black rope is the only thing holding Levi together as he provocatively slides my pelt off his shoulders for a shot, leans back against the rail of the terrace for a shot, wipes at his dripping face for a shot. I know modeling runs in the family, but I’d rather do this for free than get paid for Washington. This is nothing like Washington could ever be.

I run out of film when he’s in a specifically inviting pose on the woven lounge chair.

* * *

_The lingerie has enormous appeal. I want it off and on, all at the same time. It baffles me, it drives me mad, and it leaves me hard as stone,_ is my genius arrival when we both sit in Levi’s darkened bedroom, thoroughly soaked and unhappy at the Nick Cave album that’s playing. I’m drinking Rumchata again. From the bottle. And Nick Cave thinks it’s fine to make me feel awful on a daily basis. It might just be the rainy day weakness that gets to me, and everything is a sensory overload to my already pre-existing, everlasting melancholy, plus alcohol, plus lingerie on adolescent boys, _plus_ being sexually starved. I am in a trifecta of technically good things that operate poorly when put together.

“What time is it?” Levi boredly asks from the bed.

“Almost six,” I respond from the other side of the room. “Why?”

“Nothing.” After a few seconds, he asks: “Is almost six an indecent time to ask for a pounding?”

My laughter comes tired and renders me light-headed. I take a swig. “I’ve got church in two hours, so, yeah, probably.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“If?” I ask, because it sounds like he was about to give an ultimatum.

Levi leans up on his elbows, hair dry and frizzy. I drink the liquor as he stares me down. I think I’ve had so much of Rumchata I finally understand the phrase “three sheets to the wind”.

“If we fuck,” he confirms my suspense, and I choke on the drink.

“You don’t have to come to church for this, you know that?”

“Uh, yeah. You lost the condition necessary for driving, though.”

I pinch my thumb and index together for visual measure of how much alcohol I’ve had. Levi laughs at this. He’s still somewhere between lying down, sitting and aching to be fucked, lips curled upward, eyes lidded with drowsiness. On my account, he looks sexy. The body is still on, though wet, but I still have jeans on, just as wet, and pounds heavier than practically weightless lace.

My eyes travel to the arch of his cock. I swallow dry.

“About that phone call,” I suddenly say, physically feeling my libido leash out. “I liked that.”

He smiles, tilts his head to one side until it reaches his shoulder. I assume it denotes embarrassment until a strap of the body slides down his arm. The same motion is done with the other; a roll of his shoulder, off. He sits up now, on his knees, and pulls down by both straps. The wet lace peels off his skin—the sound of it, _god,_ it makes me knead hard at my inner thigh—leaving it glowing and wet, reflecting the vermillion red of his laptop screen. I think of grabbing my camera for this, for a low-fi bedroom porno shot. That would be suave.

Levi rolls the lace down his hips, down his thighs, it hunches at his knees when he sits back down, now bare, skin shiny. His cock is arched, thick and good in his self-created shadow, he shields what I crave to see with his own body.

The alcohol is crude and toys with my indecisive state. I’d like to be completely sober for this, to a crisp point, but sobriety comes in a bundle with nervousness and short, fruitless orgasms more often than not. Sobriety rarely wins in my book. I prefer to be dulled down. I’m too passionate as it is.

I get up to get my pants off. It’s hard, they’re soggy and stick to my skin, but Levi’s appropriative glance at my erection is empowering, to say the least (I’d use “crestfallen” on a different occasion, if I weren’t so crestfallen myself), and I shake the denim off somehow. My shirt comes off only after one of my knees has sunken on the bed, and I’m left in grey boxer briefs, in front of Levi, mirroring his pose.

We sit like that for a second, with the first chords of Secure The Galactic Perimeter ringing through the room. This song has a climactic buildup and Jean can be often seen referring to it as “a great one for backstabbing revenge sex or wanting to jut out on your partner when Fassbender starts his “boy” sequence; smearing cum on their chest is optional, but it’s largely my preference”.

I open my mouth to retell this to Levi, but he shakes his head.

“No,” Levi says. “Stay silent."

“I really wanted to—"

I think that was the cue he was waiting for. Levi pushes at my chest, and I lay back, mind now racing at the rushed idea of sex.

He throws his leg over my waist, knee landing just by the natural curve of my body. I try to look up by raising my head, but Levi clamps a hand over my throat and pushes me back down, the roughness of the motion giving me a brand new pulse. And he feels it, I think, because he presses his ass down on my cock and growls, this being the first time we’re so physically close.

“Get up here," I utter when he leans down to kiss down my chest. "Sit on my face."

Puffy lips pressed still against my left nipple, he looks up at me, considering it.

But I don't have the power to wait any longer.

I hook my arms under Levi’s knees and push him to the side. His ass is wonderfully bare now, it’s round, muscular, _great_ , and it topples my internal nine circles of hell to think everything he is is mine for the taking.

“I would’ve sat on your face,” he says.

“This is better.” I kiss down his chest as it falls and rises in waves of heavy breaths. Levi breaks out in a moan when I lick harshly beneath his navel, avoiding his cock and all that goes with it.

I kiss his pale hip, stained with the red light still, our only source of light besides a weak blue blaze from outside the windows—I kiss his thigh and down it, exploring this new bouquet of sensation, of taste, and when I get to his cock, breathe hot on it in excitement, he yanks at my hair and hastily says: “God, eat me out, eat me out, please.”

And, god, eat him out I do. I pull Levi closer to myself, push his legs up, against his own chest, and he crosses his ankles above his head. The joyous moan of an effortless first lick keeps my mind busy with the idea that this could be his first time getting rimmed. Even if it’s not, I want this to be forged within his memory, so I lap at his hole with such senselessness and devotion, and love, on top of all, _love_ —he tastes better than I could dream of, and he’s so responsive and loud, god, and I am _overjoyed_.

Levi moans lowly against his own thigh, moving against my mouth with all his might like some feral thing in a rut. If he felt like a whore then, in the bodysuit, I wonder what he feels like now being this out in the open, cursing like a sixth-grader.

I drag my tongue from his ass to the swollen tip of his cock, and I spit on it. It looks wet, sloppy, _hot_.

“God,” Levi says, leaning on his elbows to see me work.

“You like that?”

“I love that.”

My thumb swabs at precum and the spit dribbling down his cock, and I press my open mouth on his balls as a means to distract all attention from my probing thumb. He's pleasantly loose when I feel him up. With a quick glance over his blissful expression, I push in. I take great pride in fingering, it’s my magnum opus and inherently a vice; I have an unhealthy tendency to finger people to full body orgasms and leave myself hanging in the end.

Thumb goes first because he's loose and because it’s how I do it. It’s a good sign, it means he’s relaxed. It’s tight, though, and I could bury myself inside him this right instant if I didn’t have whatever meek self-control.

I switch thumb for middle finger, and Levi reacts the second I push it in, with a soft, faltering gasp at the ceiling.

“Is that good?” I whisper, kissing his thigh again.

“Yeah, that’s good, that’s really fucking good, I _love_ that,” he chants, hand sliding down to his cock. “Go on.”

I push myself up to be closer to his dimly-lit face. “More?”

“I can take more, yeah,” Levi breathes. I lean down to kiss him.

My index slips in like it’s nothing. It’s hot and fucking spaceless, and I love it. Now Levi really begins to get the sense of things as I stuff him up until my knuckles. He pulls at his balls without jerking off; the sensation is too weird, too blissful and gets him off too quickly, so he really has to hang in tight until he’s overstimulated. The only good thing about being in your teens is your body’s sense of recovery. You’re a fucking machine, theoretically. That’s what I aim to exercise tonight.

I change the angle and go up from below, and Levi loses his composure. He croaks, then melts onto my fingers with repetitive, soft moans, and I work him good, I do my part more than well; I’m brilliant at this. My arm is burning in exertion and I’m working up a little sweat trying to ignore my own stabbing, hot erection.

His tight grip on his shaft is like a cockring, I think, because he thinks I’ll be disappointed if he comes this early. Truth be told, I wouldn’t have lasted even that long.

My whole palm is slick now, but I keep pumping at my own discretion.

“Let go,” I say.

“No way,” he hisses back.

“Let go. Trust me.”

Oh, _la Virgen de Guadalupe_ , the bliss that paints his face borders with what seems like incredible pain; “crestfallen” comes to mind once again, but way more amped up. He screams now, for good. Levi fucks himself on my fingers all the way through his orgasm, and my free hand finds his to cushion the clawing. Cum pools at his navel; some trickles down the sides of his waist, but the load is big, and I’m very content.

He’s still shaking minutes later, eyes closed, as if opening them would break the essence of it.

I smile. “You good?”

“ _Fuck_ , yeah. Yeah.” Levi finally looks at me, still holding on to my hand. “You should’ve told me you’re this good at fingering on your birthday. I would’ve leapt on your fingers like a promise ring.”

“I only take pride in fingering and eating a lot.”

“Me too, somehow.”

He lies still, surrounded in post-orgasm glow, and listens to the music. I stopped paying attention to what was playing early on, but now that Levi’s melodic groans aren’t filling the room, I pick up Pale Blue Eyes by The Velvet Underground.

Levi does too, I think, because his eyes flutter open, and he says: “Eren, I think I want to lose my virginity to this song.”

I gape at him, feeling more than one force of reason jab at my consciousness.

“You’re kidding,” I say.

He turns to me, arms crossed behind his head. “About what? The Velvet Underground?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Levi shrugs, picks at the scar on his chest. “Does that change anything? You never really asked.” Pauses. “I don’t know. I don’t think it holds any significance, asides from, like—I don’t know, a superiority complex and bad taste in your mouth afterwards.”

I lie down next to him and mimic his pose. Surprised he hasn’t gotten up to wipe his stomach, I dip in the knuckle of my pinky finger and lick it.

“That was absolutely disgusting,” Levi comments.

“You ate my cum like pudding.”

“Well, yeah, fair point. You never answered my question.”

“If me being informed you’ve never had sex changes anything? It changes _something_ ,” I murmur pensively. “I’m not even supposed to be fingerbanging you into next week. You’re underage.”

“Fingerbanging,” Levi almost wheezes. “What a term.”

“I’m trying to bring your attention to kind of important matters.”

He sits up.

His hair is even more of a mess now. Post-sex twists and tangles. The small rolls of his stomach crease with his semen, and his cock is now a little limp, but he doesn’t look done. Levi topples me like that, dirty and pretty spent; he smells musky, like his cologne, but nastier, just the way I like it.

I’m still hard through my boxers. He sees that.

“You’re saying you had no idea I was a virgin,” Levi silently concludes, palming at my cock.

“No.”

“Am I pressuring you into fucking me now that you know of it?”

I hesitate. “Slightly.”

Levi pulls at my boxers, hesitates just like I did with my answer, and then slides them off. I feel his hand wrap around my length. A wet, slick, warm hand joins the other later, and I fatalistically realize he smeared his own cum on me.

“So you don’t want me now.” Another rhetoric conclusion.

“I do. I do, really bad. I just don’t want anyone to know. I don't want Joseph to know.”

“He doesn’t have to.”

I can hear my foreskin. It’s obnoxious and distracting.

“I have a feeling I’m on probation because of the fires,” I confess, eyes on him as I focus on each stroke. “Because of the documentary and my interest in it. It, and arson, now, in general. Everyone is kind of agitated at this point, so if I slip up and it comes to light, you’re never going to see me again.”

Levi’s eyes glisten in the dark. “I won’t _beg_ for it.”

“Maybe I’d consider it if you did.”

I feel my cock press against his slick ass the second I say it. Levi aligns it perfectly so that I get to push at him with the slightest effort of what no one would call real penetration.

“Go ahead,” he says. “It’s there, take it.”

I trail my hands over his shapely hips, sure to leave literal dents on them after tonight goes down in history as my most sinful day up to date. I'm in so much trouble, so, so much trouble.

“Do you feel okay with this?" I ask. "You might want to grace someone else with it. Grand thing. Prize moment.”

Levi snickers, rubbing down on me. “Did you feel more okay pledging to raw me over the phone? There’s no pressure.”

“Your uncle is the town’s sheriff,” I gasp, feeling the head of my cock slip in further than ever anticipated. “I believe there’s some degree of pressure.”

He doesn’t say anything, then, too caught up in trying to accustom to what was going on. Both thighs on each side of my waist, he slowly lowers himself down; under my hands, I feel his quads ripple with unspoken energy. Through something incoherent between a gasp and an “oh god”, I feel him brush against my thighs and realize I’m completely inside.

Pleasure washes over the guilt settled deep within.

“Took it like a champ,” I hastily say, my composure toppling because of the heat, the tightness, and the fact that _we’re doing it._ The sensation of making love to someone you’ve been aching for is strong.

“You’ll clove me in two if you move,” he grits through his teeth. “Hang on. Hang on.”

“Just wait it out. It burns at first and then gets better once you move. It's not a pretty feeling.”

“Thanks,” Levi says what I assume is meant to be sarcastic, but turns out he really meant it. “God, that feels like a lot. It’s bigger than you advertise, bitch.”

“Hey, listen.”

He stills at the synthesizer coming from his laptop.

“That’s Depeche Mode.” He winces. “I never ought to be fucked to Strangelove, Eren.”

“You’ll just have to live with it,” I say. “If you get up now, your body won’t give a take two.”

“Why?”

“I feel like it won’t.” I knead lightly at his ass, pursing my lips at how soft it is, the way it fills my hands. “Levi... That’s—you feel fucking amazing."

"I know," he says.

Levi sits up straight, hands behind his back, on my knees. His torso is on beautiful display in the blue darkness of the sunroom. I’d always imagined having sex in the sunroom with the sun out—you know, for additional emotional value, warmth, cinematic juiciness of how rays cut through the blinds, and just because it makes sense on a pragmatic level. But fucking in the same sunroom post-rainfall, soggy and tired, is somehow more fitting to who we are as people, who I am as an individual.

He lifts his hips and sinks back down, slow, like that.

“What are you afraid of?” He whispers.

"What?" I gasp, too focused on what's going on.

“I don’t know.” I thumb circles on his knees, watching how the red light from his laptop shines symbolically upon our act. Uneasiness rattles somewhere in a heart chamber. “Doing anything that results in losing you.”

“You don’t have to lie now, with your cock jabbing at last night’s dinner,” Levi says. Another roll of his hips, and his breath shakes. “Oh, fuck. Talk to me a little bit more, I keep clenching out on you. I feel like I can’t, because I’m full, but I somehow do, anyway.”

“I feel that.”

He clenches down on me purposefully, now, and I suck a quick breath. That’s the real beauty of bareback. It’s raw, wet, guttural and through and through amazing, and I feel every inch of him when he talks.

One hand on his cock to hide it rather than achieve any stimulation, Levi finally breaks in the ball shoes. With a hard slap against my quads, he drops, and then does the same again, and again, and each time is so otherworldly I feel like I could tear up. This doesn’t last long, however. His legs start shaking with the newly discovered pace.

I sit up with Levi still on my lap (this motion earns me a breathy “holy fuck”), my arms tight around his waist as I’m now the one to pick pace, and I go light, shallow, but fast and precise. Levi’s head falls against my shoulder, it just lolls there at every movement, mind blown at the prospect of _fucking_ , blown at the discovery of unknown pleasures sex brings.

I’d forgotten how healthy sex is for my psyche.

Our shared kisses are sloppy and intense, and kiss down Levi’s neck in a blind drive for closeness. Through his wallowing and episodes of roughly jerking in spasms upon my right angling, I mark him lower on his neck, so only the right people get to know, and when he fists at his cock, whimpering he can’t hold it anymore, I bite down. We finish in a slightly belated unison, me, inside of him, him, on my chest.

Every exhale of his is crowned with a whimper until we both calm down.

“Don’t pull out,” he says wearily, forehead pressed wet against my collarbone. “Stay for a while.”

I keep a very slow, very shallow comfort rhythm until Levi tells me I should still.

“I feel…” He begins, pushing my sweaty locks out of my face. “Full.”

“Of what?” I ask, hoping for a post-sex epiphany, praise on how good my cock is, or how well I do what I did.

“ _Cum_ ,” Levi heartily pronounces.

* * *

_Nature did some dry cleaning._

_After the torrential downpour the Northern wind current was strong enough for the radio to announce it's best to stay at home. We had less than an hour left until church, and I was really dedicated on not going. Levi insisted. He said he wanted Joseph to see him at church in his disdainful state of being fucked out. So we barely cleaned up and went as we were, looking exactly like what we just did._

_My journal entries have officially stopped having assigned dates, because I don’t know what day it is anymore._

_On Animal Collective’s The Purple Bottle, when words suddenly pale in comparison to the immensity of this love Avey nurtures for his loved one and he can only eccentrically shout, belt, scream, shriek, growl, howl, quiver and yell so frantically, so desperately, in order to express this undying, unshakable, anxiety-inducing, nauseating, blissful, liberating, unadulterated and pure feeling he holds for said person—that’s how I feel towards Levi._

_Unadulterated._

_In love._

_We’re lying on the hood of my car in the church parking lot opposite to my house tonight. The rain ceased. Levi shows me pictures of his parents and lets me in on a level more intimate than the physical, and I value that more than anything. Some good quotes I catch: “People from middle school are always surprised to hear I haven’t killed myself” and “all I could do was watch Mr. Robot and masturbate in between anxiety attacks”._

_My personal favorite: “Oh, fuck. The feeling of a cock filling you for the first time is—I don’t know, to put it in one word, it’s quite bangin'."_

* * *

When we get back home, I habitually turn on the TV for background noise while I fetch food. Levi goes to his room to change the sheets, so I’m left with the static buzz of evening news. Evening news don’t require any of my attention because they’re mostly complete small talk.

I lean sideways against the kitchen counter, nibbling at a packet of frozen enchiladas, eyes on the screen. They're talking about the freeway racers and worldly problems, so I read on the roll of what's up next.

I involuntarily tense up at a certain fragment of the glowing text at the bottom, and fumble backwards to find the remote.

 **“Valley Mall’s recreational vehicle village erased as a work of our suspect arsonist,”** a man in some grey high-collar suit now reads. **“Today’s rainy afternoon works as no hurdle for Hagerstown area’s newfound terror. Attacks are speculated to become larger in magnitude as observers mention first incidents being mere downtown garbage container fires that have now graduated to infuriating living spaces—even occupied. The Lakeside Village, a mobile home of many, has been the most grandiose arson incident of state history. Up next, we offer firefighter footage for personal insight. Viewer discretion advised.”**

I stand still with the frozen enchiladas in hand.

“Levi?” I weakly call over my shoulder. “Come see this.”

The thumps of him running to the kitchen reach me what it seems only ten minutes later, when he emerges from the hallway.

“See what?” He asks, staring at my pinto bean enchiladas. Then, looks at the TV screen. His eyes widen, and a limp back of his hand covers his gaping mouth.

I watch him.

I watch him, and the sudden, irrational suspense picking at me by my burning throat makes me feel sicker than I ever have been.


	7. Vermilion (Seventh Circle)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy your absolute despair. Will edit at some point 
> 
> [Gazastrippin](https://gazastrippin.tumblr.com) on Tumblr.
> 
> [Playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/hentaivert/playlist/2rND5iE0iUjELcUuuIYn1o) here.

This is my post-sex psychosis episode. This is what I call feeling alive.

The last few nights of this week are filled with luscious lovemaking to break up Levi’s newfound libido. Mornings stay reserved for put-off storage issues and hasty car blowjobs, and Levi has unofficially stopped driving Karen’s car to school and work. I take the role of an Uber driver for a hot minute. It’s not all that bad to be paid in head currency, and I am still wrecking house. Raw-dicked and drained, but alive.

But upon my parents’ arrival back home from Georgia and an off-kilter iced tea family visit on Saturday, I realize I’ve gone far off the hook with my slacking and lightheadedness.

The air smells like sex. The recreational usage of a flowerpot as an ashtray is outside on the rail of the terrace when my sister and parents arrive, and I barely manage to gesture for Levi to shove it in the garage. The house is a mess, the living room has never been this full of camera gear, there is lingerie stuffed in the crevices of the couch, and I’m not sure if there is any drunk-punk public event in which I would come off presentable looking like I do.

We then sit outside on the terrace, the lot of us, on my old, woven chairs I salvaged from a storage unit two years ago when moving in, drinking homemade peach iced tea, tonguing around Georgia matters and weather changes. I feel like I’ve broken off from my family a bit. I’m branching out, and they stay in their familial territory. Our wavelengths differ as conversations don’t run all that smoothly anymore, because all I want to talk about is Levi, and all they want to talk about is Georgia, getting dogs, traveling. They’re out of the loop on the whole arson thing, too, so there’s nothing in common to discuss, and all I do is listen unless it involves me in some way.

Christa sits cross-legged on an additional lounge chair Levi brought outside, painting her nails. We were always four on family Saturdays, until now.

I wearily chew on ice. The tall, dewy glass cools my bare knee. I’m in cut-off jean shorts and a black beater. Nothing else in the world screams “I just had sex and forgot about the family outing” more than what I’m wearing.

Levi stretches in his seat, somewhat into this conversation Christa is having with _mamá_. His white t-shirt slides up his waist, hinting at the waistband of what I’m sure is my underwear, and the slit cut of his scar. I’m used to seeing it by now. I gaze more at the carpet burns on his elbows and angular knees that poke through black ripped jeans.

His hand digs in a bag of salted pretzels. He smiles at me.

Sun is nice. Sun is so, so nice. It gnaws at Levi’s tanning skin, his forearms and the narrow bridge of his nose, bringing out the freckles from deep within. His butter hair falls in waves at the messy, darkening middle part, sticks up at his slight widow’s peak showing little sign of bleach-induced breakage and dryness. This hair I now pull so needy almost every day, spaces between my fingers full of thin, white strands after I’ve ridden out my gasp-filled, shameful overstimulation, and it’s unsettling to be aware nobody but us knows of the sexual complications of our affair.

With a light case of arrhythmia from thinking about this I keep chewing on ice, wondering whether _mamá_ has any conceptual knowledge of carpet burns and where they tend to come from.

“Eren, your cousins are graduating next month.” _Mamá_ turns to me, picking at the fraying ends of my shorts. “Are we going down to Mexico, do you want that? _Copas_ with _el tío_ Perres and all that, no?”

 _“El tío_ Pablo,” I murmur into the glass. “I don’t know. That’s far ahead. A lot of my more local friends are graduating next month as well.”

_“No te vayas, tonta.”_

_“Tengo que hacerlo, mamá._ Levi’s graduating, too, so I’ll be around.” We share a glance over the table, with him stuffing a pretzel on his index finger as another complimentary ring. “We could probably go to Mexico later this summer, say August, maybe.”

She raises her drawn-on eyebrows. “That’s a stretch.”

“Who are you going to leave two houses to, Karen?”

“Karen’s on vacation in June,” Levi adds.

“Karen’s always got some _pinche tiradero.”_

“When are you leaving, Levi?” _Mamá_ asks. “Would you want to come to Mexico with us? I don’t think Joseph has the time to bring you places, being the sheriff and always on duty. I’d like to say downtown Hagerstown and Valley Mall isn’t all you want to see during your stay.”

Levi tries biting the pretzel off his finger. “Late August,” he says, chewing. “Or so I think. Mexico sounds like a really good time. I’m game.”

“We’re from Monterrey, from Garza García,” I mention. “Yeah. Yeah, we should take you there. You’re going to see my uncle Perres. Uncle Perres is a joke.”

“Eren calls uncle Perres _el tío_ Pablo because of that Kanye West album,” Christa says to Levi, blowing at the drying black nail polish. “We were visiting last year and uncle’s house is this gorgeous _estancia_ -looking thing with a fountain and a tiled patio amidst the whole place, so neighbors don’t get to see his _disparatado_ bashes. And it was late March, I think, it was Eren’s birthday, and Eren was so into the album he played it in the patio for days. It grew on uncle Perres.”

“I gave him a Saint Pablo t-shirt for Christmas,” I say.

“And then he kept telling his wife he feels like Pablo,” Christa doesn’t fail to add.

“I thought I was going to leave you both at the border,” _mamá_ comments. “Levi, I don’t see how Eren is bearable.”

“Oh, I’m not.”

“He’s alright,” Levi meaningfully lingers on the word. The concealed smile tugging at his features makes him look like such a minx. “He helps me with schoolwork, so I somehow live with the terror, you know?”

 _Papá_ is left out of the conversation while he goes through what I’ve written in the storage journal over their week of absence. Now he pushes it away on the glass table and finally looks up, his interest piqued.

“Do you have any plans for college?” He asks, pushing at his glasses (very fatherly motive; I do this too), while I’m wondering what kind of schoolwork I’ve ever helped Levi with.

Levi pulls his feet up on the chair. “Now that’s a good…good question, a brilliant question. I don’t think I can answer it. My parents have been pushing this for weeks, so it’s probably in my best interest to have a plan, but I don’t. I guess I’ll weigh in for something artsy. There’s nothing else I know how to do that’s socially, like, valuable, or whatever.”

“You told me you wanted to be an architect,” I mention, because he looks slightly uncomfortable talking head-on to _papá_.

“Oh, yeah, well. Architects.” He shrugs. “I’m not even good at drawing. I could go for performing arts, or maybe just be this solemn countryside writer with a pair of Rockports, completely isolate myself and all that. Drink scotch. I could live in a lighthouse. I’d like to be a lighthouse keeper, that sounds neat.”

“I want to marry a lighthouse keeper and keep him company” rings through my head like fifty bullet rounds.

“Writer?” _Papá_ devilishly inquires. “Eren, here, he writes too.”

“No, it’s just scripts,” I say. “Stop. Levi’s writing isn’t comparable to what I write, or the other way around. You guys are going to die once he finds a good publisher.”

Levi throws a pretzel at me. It bounces off my chest and almost falls in my glass of iced tea.

“What was that for?” I ask.

“Exaggeration is said to cause heart problems and hair loss,” Levi says, falling back in the chair. His shoulder brushes past the white plank façade of the house, and I clearly see chips of paint land on his pants. He wipes at them. “Oh, wow. Something other than me is falling apart. How grand!”

I bite my cheek and look at _papá_. “I really postponed that repaint.”

“The repaint was supposed to take place when you got the house, not two years in. This damages the wood.” Dad leans back to run his fingers across the chipping paint. “See? That dark crease is mold. It’s good the nails are zinc-coated, at least.”

“Oh, yeah, zinc-coated. I know all about that. It’s also cool you nag about it now, two years in, instead of the first two weeks after moving when I still had the motivation to take more than five steps outside.”

“You should work on the house, Eren.”

I droop in my seat, trying to fish out a slice of lemon. My fingers aren’t too responsive from holding the cold glass for such a long time.

“I might,” I then say, tonguing the sour fruit. “Or I might just sell it for good measure. I want to move to Massachusetts or Idaho, or something. Anywhere away from Pennsylvania would be perfect. And don’t tell me the entire family doesn’t want to fling this ghost-ridden thing, don’t give me that. It’s an old house and I’m just going through this rough patch in life where all I want to do is cling to it and listen to vinyl while my entire life is left unorganized.”

“But the house itself is gorgeous,” _mamá_ pipes. “It’s just you refusing to take good care of it. You could live here for twenty more years lest you were the holy lazy goat.”

Levi giggles. “The holy lazy goat.”

“Teddy called you a bluegrass misanthropist what’s-his-name, so I don’t think you get to laugh at me having a nickname like that given by a police officer.”

Mom laughs.

“I have to pee,” Christa announces. We ignore her.

“Well, if this helps, I was thinking we could clean the pool at the very least.” Levi turns to my mother. “It needs rehabilitation. The tiles are fine, it’s just the draining and changing, like, two filters. Probably pushing at the lid of hell right now, but how much would that cost here? Like a hundred?”

“Like two hundred. Plus maintenance. Bad idea,” I say.

“Great idea,” _papá_ says. “Eren, ask Hannes. He’ll find you someone for cheap.”

“But I don’t want cheapskates cleaning my pool.”

 _Papá_ shoots his hands up defensively. “Then pay up. House value goes up with good maintenance and façade revival. If you really want to sell it, that is. I wouldn’t, but it’s on you. It’s your house now, you take care of it. I’m not going to lose any sleep over this.”

“Love what you’ve done with the garden, by the way,” Christa says.

We all look at the neglected, dandelion-filled yard and distant orchard of apple trees completely broken up by the storm on Wednesday. The pool sinks in mossy green in the middle of the chaos, and _papá’s_ Ford truck is parked next to a depleting rose bush and stacks of chopped winter wood that could use a lot of restacking.

Near the shed are toppled, rusty gas cans and a couch brought from a storage unit for burning. There is more old furniture in the back. The garden is full of leaves.

“Stop,” I whine.

* * *

Journal entry:

_I really do look like every woman in my family combined. It’s a bit unsettling, but the older I get, the more I’m okay with it._

_I really like getting blood drawn. I had a bevy of orders filled for me that I had been putting off and so this morning 6-7 moderately sized vials of blood were taken from me. I’m pretty squeamish, but I watch the needle go in, the sputtering commence. You know what it’s like to lose hearts in a Zelda game? I count backwards in my head and watch each heart container shatter. It’s really visceral when accompanied by the sounds I chime in my head—the bleeping sounds of a low-health warning._

* * *

So I now have an occupation for May.

I call Hannes up around an hour after my family leaves, with Levi painting my left hand nails with Christa’s black polish while I’m on the phone. We settle on Hannes coming over in the afternoon to catalogue the façade damage and pool’s awful drainage system so he can sum it all up and see where elbow-rubbing discounts can be pulled. Up until the afternoon, Levi and I have nothing to do, and I wind up lying on the living room floor going through my Polaroid pictures. Levi sits next to me, painting his own nails, the same hand. He put on a recording of Tommy Dorsey’s 1940’s essentials before that.

To the cue of heart-scraping swing, “gothic angel” is what comes to mind when I look up at him, his shoulders hugged by light coming from the window.

“Was that okay?” I ask, putting my favorite pictures facing down on my stomach.

“Was what okay? Your family?”

“Yeah. I feel like they’re coming on strong trying to integrate you as one of us.”

He’s focused on painting his thumb. “You know, on a different occasion I’d say, kill me, that was awful. But it’s kind of harmonic talking to them. Their problems are so…worldly. They’re all so average it’s pleasant.”

“Wait, I’m trying to feel insulted.”

“I said _they_ , not you.”

“I know, it’s alright.” I pause. “Listen, were you serious about the pool? We don’t have to do anything for the house. It’s fine if you’re just trying to pander to dad, I get what it’s like to feel forced to fake commit to something.”

“Oh, no, it’s cool.”

“I’ll pretend I forgot about this if you want me to.”

“Yeah, I—“ Levi hesitates and screws the bottle close instead of finishing off the other hand. We are both left undone. “I thought, I don’t know, I thought you’d want to live here long-term before you brought up Massachusetts. I guess having a kempt place is reasonable on any occasion.”

“Oh, that. Massachusetts. I named the first thing that came to mind,” I say, putting Polaroids between my fingers like paper shurikens. “Moving doesn’t sweat me yet.”

“I was hoping you’d want to stay here for some years. You know, I… I was thinking I wouldn’t mind moving in with you. For good. Living together.”

This fills my heart with an immeasurable amount of heat. “You think about this?”

He indirectly nods. “This and that. You never ask me what I’m thinking of.”

“I do, though. What are you thinking of now?”

“Guess.”

“See, this is why I don’t ask. You make me fling shit. I don’t know,” I then say. “I’ve got bupkis.”

“Your best guess.”

“I haven’t got one.”

“You must have some idea.”

“I don’t know. I’ve got nothing. Me? If it’s not me, I guess you’re just passively not thinking of anything right now to lead me off-track.”

He stays silent, so I continue sorting the Polaroids and wondering what else he thinks of without telling me.

The two pictures I’m holding now are complete opposites. The one in my left hand is the picture from the Wallace fire. Framed in pasty white, it’s orange, bright, unforgiving, like printed backdraft. Looking at it brings back the horror I felt driving down the curve around the birch tree grove, the smell gnawing through the AC, towering smoke, grazing sirens, police lights. My thumb runs over the shadow of the charring farmhouse, glides along the smooth fixing agent layered over the picture, as if it’s there to contain the flame.

The one in my right hand depicts Levi leaning against the doorframe of my room, tied up in black rope and soft blue glow. My eyes linger on his shapely thighs, how rope hugs them just tight enough to create ripples on his skin; Levi’s fingers are tugging on the secure knot above his navel, thumb pressed tight against a brass and gold melt ring.

His ivory skin melts into shadows where light spares his body. The transition is airy and creamy like well-mixed oil paint.

I stare at both photographs and wonder how can so many unrelated things look so good together. There is such harmony between these two-toned pictures. Hot and cold. Light play. Color play. The strings of his birthday fire stitch these two concepts together. For a second, I imagine the burning farmhouse as his home, and the terror he’s been putting up with for five years washes over me like a cold rinse.

Whistling and clicking, the fire licks at the edge of the picture. I press the photogenic flames against the picture of his bared body.

I stare.

Both are such exceptional concepts, and a feeling similar to whiplash hits the nape of my neck.

On the day I first took him on his bed—our maiden voyage, he says—I’d thought for a brief second that I was being fooled. In what way I’m not yet sure, but I felt as if honesty was credibly lacking somehow. There has never been any legal sense in what is going on between us, and I was almost ready to live with it until I found out Levi is… How do people put it nowadays? A virgin?

Up to that day, no one had yet graced me with their virginity, and I was never the one to partake in seeing younger people. It’s good, in a way, that I was given the honor, but it’s also endlessly terrifying to bear such a thing. What’s more to it is his relation to a police officer. I can’t begin to describe how quickly my life could plunge downhill if this ever gets out public.

But what really shakes me up is that I’m so invested in the arson file it’s getting harder by hour to keep people close. I’ve never experienced the feeling of everyone becoming a suspect up until now. I thought that only worked in thrillers and crime documentaries.

Teddy’s soot-covered round fingers make me study what he does with his hands while telling me about last night’s bar rendezvous. Coworker smoking habits now feel weird. People click their lighters too often. Why are my neighbors burning old boxes? Why stare at them? People at church cry more than during Christmas season. I know most are just scared out of their wits of being the next “victim” (victim, per se, although there are no registered fatalities yet), but there must be someone out there crying because _they’re_ the pursuer.

I wonder if the arsonist feels guilt of any amplitude.

The fading smell of gasoline still lingering on Levi’s skin that very night made me agitated. He smelled like petrol soaked cloth fisted inside a bottle of rum. I held him close by the overgrown hairs on the back of his head and tried to think of anything but his involvement in this ordeal. Levi has nothing to do with this, that much I know. That much I wholeheartedly believe. I just wish I knew who does, and I wish I had the might to make it end.

The arsonist out there is taking over my curious nature and it’s taking a hold on Levi by a chain of fear aglow. I’ve come to admit Joseph was right. Levi is scared. I can tell everyone in town is scared. Because once you get past small talk that used to roll freely, you start chewing on all of that. Everyone is mouthing about the arsonist now. Hagerstown area is damned. Heroin, job fallouts, now this. People saying they saw him. _Him_ , the arsonist. People spreading wide belief it’s a man’s work, because no woman in her nature could be so destructive.

I breathe up. My heart rate is almost visibly elevated. It’s only when Imagination stops playing do I realize Levi’s sitting behind me, pale and silent, his troubled grey eyes on the same pictures I’m evaluating.

I look at him from my position, placing them on my stomach facing up. His eyes are more stormy than the ocean and I’ve got a sinking feeling I got carried away again.

I reach behind myself and caress his bare knee. “You okay?”

“I wanted to ask you something.”

“Go ahead.”

Levi slides his hands on my forehead, on top of each other. They smell like cigarettes and nail polish, and I close my eyes, lulled by the bouquet of worn-down cologne on his wrists.

“Eren, what do I mean to you?” Levi asks.

Not that I was quite ready to answer that.

It’s the honeymoon question. It’s strict and concrete, and his tone tells me he wouldn’t be satiated with the “everything” on the tip of my tongue. So I take my time with the answer and think, meanwhile sliding my hands on his wrists, curling my fingers around them.

I no longer remember how everything worked when he wasn’t around now that he’s grown on me. He, now, is my everything. I can’t recall life before his arrival, so bleak it must’ve been. It’s like Levi has brought the color and sense around; everything is now oversaturated and dripping with reason, with rationality. I haven’t gone a day without lengthily thinking about him. He does such a good job at being open about certain things. The way he does so, I often forget he's still a mystery.

I have never been this fond of another person before. I’ve never been asked this question before. No one has asked me for a definition of their self-worth. So how does one explain attraction they once saw as finite that has now grown into much more than that? How to put in words what I can barely fathom with my scrutinizing little brain?

“Well,” I begin with a stubbly cough. “I don’t know how to put it.”

“I really meant to catch you off-guard.”

“It’s not like you can put anything like this into words. You’re too egocentric for “everything”, but currently, at this time in my life, in the present moment, everything,” I continue speaking a little thick in my throat. “I _wish_ I were capable of explaining what I feel. Or—no, no, actually, I don’t, with you I don’t. This can’t possibly be described. What I’m saying now is a makeshift way around telling you how it really is, because the real weight of it would be too much for anyone.”

I’ll Never Smile Again plays.

“Every detail about you is compelling. The way you look, where you come from. What you say. The way you act. You came sudden and brash into my life, fully unpredicted but _awaited_. It’s like you were supposed to come. From time to time I fear you might disappear the very same way. And, I… I wish you never did. In my selfish greed, I just wish you stayed by my side forever. You make me feel like I’m all pieced together, like I’ve never really felt, and—and since you came into my life, I’ve been trying to formulate what is it you do and _are_ that gives way to this…paradox. It sounds good, the way I came to it, I think.”

Levi’s eyes travel across my features as he pieces the words together. He concludes I need a budge to go on.

“What is it?” He dimly asks.

“I realized within you is a part of me, and it’s the only part I enjoy.”

We watch each other in suffocating silence. I smile. He closes his eyes.

“You were a feverish daydream. Maybe what brought me to you was how unapproachable I thought you were,” I resume, sliding my fingers over his knuckles, prying his left hand off my forehead to take it in mine. “Because I craved so bad to attain the unattainable, the one beyond my reach. I spent my April days writing about you, thinking about you, dreaming, stitching together an image of who I thought you were, mere words you’d spoken, and I fell in love with it. With everything there was I could salvage. I fell in love with you in a whim. It came on like a warm current, and I was—I was lost, helpless, an oar-spared sailor in my own sea. I didn’t even know you back then.”

Levi drags a sharp edge of a nail along my knuckles as to protest. “But you don’t know me now, either.”

“I don’t. I don’t know you. It comforts me. I never believed knowing someone was necessary to be together. It robs people of humanly exploration and bores me to death.”

“What if you don’t like who I am beyond what you see?” Levi asks, fingers laced with mine, voice low, trembling, almost. His thumb runs against the grain of the dark hairs on the back of my hand. “Once you get to know me and everything you used to adore you’ll grow to hate, what then?”

“Then you’ll teach me how to love you again.”

There is a long pause between he speaks up.

“I’d have to love myself first,” Levi whispers, somewhat coldly.

The silence is even longer after his response.

I know that I often joke around self-esteem matters, and I do so rather ironically or during actual spurts of degradation that just come by, just like that—but for Levi to talk down on himself feels like a whole bucket of lies. He’s so good in his nature. Not a speck of evil, not a smidge of anything you couldn’t love.

“There’s this saying, what the eye don’t perceive, the heart don't grieve.” I bring his hand to my lips and kiss the base of his thumb. “There is nothing in the world that could tear us apart now. Something will come up, be it bad or fantastic, and we’ll deal with it. Together. It’s how we get to question each other and see if this has substance to last. Even the purest, most unadulterated love throws shadow so affection can rest. Everything needs rest sometimes.”

“I really want to kiss you right now.”

He has large, round, fiercely glowing black eyes that focus on me with hypnotic effect.

“Was there any reason you had to ask?” I probe when he leans on his forearms, hovering an inch above my face, taking me in upside down.

Levi breathes calmly against my skin.

“Yeah,” he whispers. “I was wrong. When I said I’ve only been lucky once, I was wrong.”

“About what?”

“I’m lucky I found you,” Levi says. “And that you took me the way I am.”

My eyebrows curl upwards from sudden endearment, and the weakest breeze of a laugh escapes my lips. I pull him in for a kiss.

It’s difficult; his top lip is now his bottom lip, and vice versa, so I soon feel Levi’s hands slide on my chest as he straddles me to turn things the right way. His black jeans strain his thighs. I feel how tight they are when I run my hands up to his ass and wriggle my fingers in his back pockets, pulling him flush to myself.

“Do we want more carpet burns?” I whisper against his fruity, wet lips. “Gracing floors should be a weekend thing. Have some decency.”

Levi breathes steady, hips grinding soft circles on mine. He looks so focused, so determined, and the hands pressing at my chest slide up to my neck. The usually cold rings are warm and smell strongly of metal, and Levi’s fingertips dig into my skin with thoughtful pressure.

“No, I won’t,” he says.

I choke out shameful approval and work his zipper down.

We fuck on the living room floor for the fifth time this week.

* * *

Levi and I begin work on the pool coming Monday. On my only free Sunday evening I drove all the way to Frederick’s Home Depot for new façade paint, butterfly nets to clean pool water with, tile filling, water filters, chloride tablets, completely unnecessary light box purchase and glue—fucking glue! To Frederick, for _glue!_

I consider setting up a fence and carving it with barbs so neighbor kids don’t think it’s open door day for a renovated pool. Hannes organized a couple workers that came by on Monday morning when Levi left for class. I leaned on the rail of the terrace and watched them as I pulled on my cigarette. They were only supposed to clean the filters for a hundred bucks, but by noon I realized they’re scrubbing the tiles, too. I paid in cash and left tips.

Levi comes home from work exhausted and unhappy because his manager pointed out nail polish is out of question for baristas and food chain workers. Since I don’t own any acetone, I make him ring Christa and bother her for some time.

“She’s not coming over,” he proudly tells me as I’m crouching in the empty basin. “I’ll just chew it the fuck off.”

I put the tile filling asides and sit back, shielding my eyes from the low May sun. “Fantastic. What time is it?”

“Quarter to seven.”

“Wow. You’re home this late? I had no idea what time it was until now.”

Levi shrugs. “I took the car today since you said you’re staying home. Got to drive around. I went to Sam’s and bought vitamins for twelve dollars.”

“Vitamins?”

“Yeah.”

“For twelve dollars?”

“That’s kind of reasonable. The packaging is literally pint-sized. And it’s coffee flavor. I would probably die for anything coffee-flavored, know this.”

“What are they for?” I ask.

Levi shyly picks at the edge of his shirt. “They’re, like, semi-aphrodisiacs.”

 _This is some kind of an infuriating joke,_ I think. “I’m guessing this is not the time for me to confess neither of us need that.”

He sits down on the edge of the pool that is still untouched by tile filling and hits his heels against the walls of it languidly. I take off my gloves and get up so I could lean on my forearms next to him.

“I read this encourages— _boosts_ ,” he stutters, “this boosts growth. All sorts of.”

“You mean you’re going to gnaw on sex vitamins and defy genetics that way? Short stack is short stack.”

“I mean, have you ever felt your dick was small?”

I pause and think.

“No,” I say. “I’m…Latino, dude.”

“So I’ve heard,” he sourly says.

“You’ve got an absolutely fine dick. To reason your size complex, you’re seventeen. Teenagers deal with these stupid things. You’re still growing, so don’t go hard on yourself, people don’t jump hurdles to check your girth or whatever.”

“I kind of thought I was decent until I met you,” Levi replies. “Now I just feel like the snack-sized Tablerone next to an airport duty-free brick of Tablerone.”

“That is weirdly specific.”

“Because true, _python_.”

“Oh my god!” I wheeze. “Stop. It’s nonsense, I don’t want it. Can you bring me water, please? I’m all kinds of nasty, I don’t want to leave the fridge smudged.”

Levi gets up and pats his volleyball short-clad ass clean of dust. It… _jiggles_. Despite grains of sand getting all up in my lashes, I stare after him, being sure I just caught a glimpse of god.

He brings water, which is iced, and hands me the glass. While doing so, he sits down in front of me, legs spread, and I lean on his right thigh because my elbows hurt from the cold tiling.

“Do you think about my age often?” He asks out of the blue, pushing my hair back in large chunks. His nails graze the sweaty buildup by my temples. “It feels like you do. I wonder if it concerns you.”

“I do, oh my god,” I say once I’m done chugging. “Not as much now, but I was ready to shit myself there and then when you said you were seventeen. I was like, hey, now this is some jailbait! You never looked seventeen and it really bothered me during that entire daisy plucking show we had going on.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I tried to convince myself for the longest time that the age gap is too big. It all washed over me times five when I realized I have this fat crush on you. And then I kind of beat off, and, yeah.”

“You beat off when?”

“I’ll say on the day I first drove you to Maugansville? I think jerking off was completely unrelated to anything but momentary weakness. Like, I felt like you weren’t into me at all, but at the same time the signals were so mixed, so I just gave in and did it, and cried.”

Levi snorts. “I beat off the same day.”

“You’re kidding me,” I say.

“Yeah, I just thought you were hot and there was tension, and I had nothing better to do.”

I laugh and let my cheek rest on his thigh. We watch each other drowned by the background noise of blooming nature and faint rumble of cars that pass by the church. His fingers dig into my hair and play with loose curls, pull them to see how they straighten and bounce back into small ripples. He then drags his thumb down my cheek, presses his nail into my lower lip, and pulls it down.

“Your teeth are really pretty,” he says, squinting at my bottom row.

I smile as best as I can. “Thank you.”

We sink in dreamy, love-filled silence again, and I rub my cheek against his bare thigh, aided by the warmth of his skin and the smell of freshly sprouting May grass.

How I landed someone this beautiful, I don’t know. Unfathomable grace just ties every movement of his, and all his facial features look carefully picked by an Italian painter. It’s indescribable what I feel when I let my eyes roam over his body, his veiny, delicate, but manly hands that will never do labor harder than scribbling tantalizing poetry, all of his skin nicks, feathery body hair, sturdy knees and excitingly round, firm thighs that ask for a biting. Levi’s t-shirt is tucked loose behind the waistband of his synthetic volleyball shorts and clings tight to his chest, hinting at a rapidly developing set of muscle.

I know what the eyes perceive is nothing but artificial. I think what I’ve really fallen in love with is his soul. To think I asked and was delivered—was actually, tangibly delivered—someone I am ready to spend my life with steers me to think of the price I would later have to pay for that.

I rub my nose against his thigh and momentarily wish life was always as timeless as this.

I wish he would never have to grow up, but more than anything I wish for him to be happy. Sometimes I make myself wonder why to the question of “what kind of an adult do you want to be when you grow up?” my answer is a relentless: “Anything but the one I became.” Am I discontent? Is there anything in my life that should make me feel this way, or am I just victimizing myself to draw attention to my mundane childhood and made up stories about how people didn’t treat me right?

I’m not known for putting other people’s happiness above mine, so dawning on this thought—the very idea of stabilizing his happiness—picks rough at my heart strings. Thinking of him as my seventeen-year-old lover that I also took under my wing with the same affection I would feel towards a family member, it’s how I wish to think of him forever, until I drag my last weary breath. But nothing is everlong, and good things love to end. Being by his side to see him grow into a decent man is the only thing that feels real to me these days. Somewhat beautiful, in the gracious sense of watching fruit ripen. It gives my life some unknown purpose.

Looking back at our living room conversation, I now wonder what I mean to him. If what he feels is as supreme as what I feel myself.

Levi brings me back to our backyard pool with a soft tug at my jaw. “Eren?”

I realize my eyes are transfixed on a fold of his shirt. My nose feels a little runny and numbness steadily creeps up my left elbow. There are suds on my knuckles and my brown wrists are wrapped in pale bracelet tan line vines.

“I’m okay,” I coarsely say, heart full to the brim. “I’m just happy.”

Levi looks to the side, his eyes full of some emotion I don’t understand, can’t decipher, and then turns back to me, the softest and somehow most pressed-back smile I’ve seen on him painting his rosy lips.

“There’s something I want to give you,” he claims this like some irrelevant mention, voice raspy as he tilts his head back to reveal a swan-like neck, long, dusted in small beauty marks. “I’m not sure when or how, but this will belong to you, because it always has.”

His Adam’s apple bobs before he gets to say anything else, and I feel his hand trying to pry my fingers apart.

I take his hand in mine and watch him stare up at the sky.

“I hope you know how much I love you,” Levi whispers.

“I might have an idea,” I reply in a slow drawl.

* * *

Journal entry:

_The salary of working people is falling with the speed of "Boeing 747". I have also successfully come to a conclusion that I’m not lazy. I just rest before I get tired._

_Then again—am I lazy, or am I…patient?_

_The only time I got to draw the outlines of my forthcoming documentary is when Levi passed out on the couch next to me. I phoned the fire station. It’s now 3 AM, I am beyond exhausted, but here’s how it went. Greencastle sheriff’s office has been investigating, since April, over fourteen fires. Fourteen fires that haven’t been incidental or very minor (tires, garbage containers, sheds). The fire department claims to have things under control. That’s what they said—that they have things under control. The fire department is shoving shit straight up in my face. This case is just some pinche tiradero in the back of “Mr. Fluffers is stuck in a tree, help me get him down” hotlines. Official investigation hasn’t given neither anyone’s name, face, or whether the fires are indeed intentional or occur so frequently because of some bizarre coincidence. Their only clue is that it can’t be some power flood because piping here is top notch, and that most burnt estates don’t even have electricity._

_This has absolutely no merit! No merit! How can you screw around for so long and not even have anyone on the black list?_

_I did find out about the Valley Mall RV village. It’s burnt to a crisp._

_Over twenty people have died and the fire department is still taking no legal action._

* * *

Late Tuesday morning is when I finally fill the pool with water. I replanted the flower bushes that were swallowing the house from the foundation up haphazardly around the pool’s perimeter so it now looks more posh. The sight asks for Cuban lean shots and a tiger mink _shuba_. If there’s one thing I’ve steadily learned, it’s that _shuba_ means fur coat in Russian.

It’s too cold for _me_ to swim anyway, but I assume May sun will do me as much justice as warming the water until Levi gets home. He’s such a kid at heart he’ll probably live in the pool from now on. I know I used to whenever I was in Mexico.

And so the afternoon proves me right. Levi can be seen undressing before he even gets out of his car.

Ten minutes later, his skim body shoots across the yard to dive in the pool. I am allowed a seat by the garden shed with my journal in hand to serve purpose as an audience. His thighs ripple with newfound energy when he gets out to jump again, pulling at his clingy black shorts as he does—which humors me. The swimming mannerisms really peel away at Levi’s adult persona; pulling garments out your ass, gargling water, spitting it at me. There’s also that obligatory fake farting where you let air build up in your shorts. I’ll say that’s my personal favorite.

He stands on the tiled edge, hands planted on his hips. The water runs down his firm legs, mixing in with the leftover coconut oil I forced him to put on in case the sun wants to eliminate his Caucasian skin. And maybe I’ve been looking at him more than my journal, but the tan line on his glutes wasn’t there just an hour ago.

I muse about it for a good few minutes.

Levi swims up to the robust edge of the pool and leans on his forearms. His hair sticks to his forehead like glued down fraying ends of a cut rope. He spits out pool water (classic) and it leaks slowly down his chin.

“You’re not coming?” Levi asks with a dazzling smile.

“I’ll live,” I say, wiping demonstratively at my left shin. “Watching you swim is too entertaining to pass up on and I’m doing things.”

“Doing things,” he remarks.

“Yeah, doing things.”

He dives in backwards and floats atop the chloride water like a buoy, abdomen clenched tight. Water pools at his navel. His soaked eyelashes flutter shut, and then he finally stands again through loud splashing, hair out of his face now.

“Wow, chloride makes my dick itch,” he loudly says.

“Same,” I drawl over my journal. “I’m always going at my junk during pool parties.”

“That’s got to look wild.”

“Yeah, it does.”

“Maybe the vitamins are working.”

I close my eyes in frustration. “Levi, pills are a gimmick. But yeah, sure, maybe. I remember my stretch marks really itched when I was around fifteen or so. You’ll get tiger dick.”

“I don’t want tiger dick,” he spurts. “You can’t get stretch marks on your dick.”

“Of course you can.”

He flips me off and swims backwards. I watch his sun kissed torso swirl underneath crystal clear water and think, and _know_ , that this is absolutely everything I want out of life.

My thoughtful genes activate around an hour later when I notice sun is stretching down to meet the horizon and Levi’s languidly floating around icy blue water without much movement. Even I’m getting a little cold in my Vans and tube sock combination, so I get up, back sore from the lounger I’d been sitting on, and stretch.

“I think I’m getting furniture from 44,” I say, rolling my shoulders. “I’m going to burn it.”

Levi is moving around the pool on his back like a log of washed up driftwood.

“My fingers are so pruney,” he murmurs.

“You’ve been in there for hours.”

“Aren’t you gonna sell the couches? People these days make a mint from selling used shit on Craigslist.”

“These are really bad. I already used up my weekly furniture disposal coupon at Hank’s, so I’ll just burn the couches and a few cabinets at that.”

He finally stands on his feet. The water washes up to his chin. “I can help you move stuff if you wait until I get out.”

“That would be great.”

“Give me a few.”

We drive down to the storages around ten minutes later. I complain about having to fix the automatic fence _papá_ hasn’t gotten to for five years now, and Levi bangs his head to Pure Shores by All Saints or something as equally 1999’s pop as that. I think our relationship has gone from 60’s rock and blues to the 90’s pop scene. I’m talking Backstreet Boys and *NYSYNC, and, obviously, All Saints.

I told him to wear something he wouldn’t mind getting dirty, so he wore my Rush shirt. This is called going into full offense.

We somehow force everything from 44 into _papá’s_ Ford, though I had to chop off the legs of a dining table and slam my entire body weight on a couple of chairs to make it all fit. We drive back home listening to Spandau Ballet. The high notes Levi can’t hit are kind of telling me his voice is finally cracking for good.

He backs the Ford down our steep backyard while I rummage the shed for the rusty red gas can I always use for burning furniture. I find the white and green ones, but red is out of sight.

“Levi?” I yell over my shoulder, hands in the back pockets of my jeans. “Seen the red gas can?”

“The what?”

“The red gas can.”

“No? It was by the shed the last time I saw it.”

I walk around the shed just to check, but all there is is an old canoe, oars and cut up rope. It might be that _papá_ took it since doing whatever you want is a running habit in our family. I head back inside and get the white can.

Levi stands on the back of the truck, foot prepped on the tailgate.

“Found it?” He inquires.

“Nope. It’s gone.”

“It’s weird, I thought I saw it just—“ He leans back and tosses the upholstered chairs out of the truck. One of them falls apart and a piece of its leg hits the tail light of the car. It flickers, and I hiss. “— _sorry_ —just, I don’t know, yesterday.”

I put the can down right besides the burnt square of grass.

“Maybe the dude who’s burning shit will finally bring an end to my dusty fucking villa,” I cheerfully say, picking up the pieces of both chairs. “Either way, don’t stress it. We got more gas.”

* * *

Journal entry:

_Nothing is more beautiful than watching Levi’s morning swims. I think I wound up crying. His silky, feathery body hair grows a bleached hay color on his now tan skin and melts golden where his back muscles shift. Sun was washing over his brown shoulders and his messy honey hair stuck to his neck in little wet curls, and he laid back on the warm tiles, arms spread, smiling at the sky._

_I stood on the balcony pulling on my cigarette and cried like someone whose happiness had been taken away._

_His voice broke. It’s weird. I thought he’d already gone through it. Maybe I’m just registering him a bit too old in my head—sometimes I forget he’s four years younger._

_I didn’t expect him to stay out while I was burning the couches, but he stood by and watched the black smoke rise. His head was tilted back a little, and his chin was up. I watched him carefully. Levi was not moving, maybe a little tranquil even, and his arms were tense. He held them in a way they didn’t touch his sides. The fists were almost clenched, but his index fingers sometimes twitched. I found it fascinating. It seemed like he finally, for once, felt superior to what took everything from him._

_It was so nuanced._

_When the fire turned into sizzling coal, I dusted sand over it so it ceases. We got inside. I went over to the fridge to get juice—holding the jug in my hands, I felt how deep the smell of synthetic smoke had etched its way into my skin._

_Levi walked up behind me. He pressed his nose into my shirt and huffed heavily against my back. His hands ran down my sides, and he pulled me backwards by my hips. I cluelessly adhered to the motion. There was…raw force surging through him. He was quivering in need._

_I put the juice on the counter and turned around to face Levi without breaking bodily contact for a second. He pressed me back against the fridge by my neck. I jolted. The static hit me from behind, and all the hairs on my body stood straight. It wasn’t the work of the vibrating refrigerator, it was the look in his eyes—I had never seen him so full of desire. They had darkened to a point of dull blackness, and his grip on me was tight. Never had I thought of severe dominance as his thing, not until now._

_In a tidal wave of greed, we had sex with our clothes on. I had never desired him more than that night._

* * *

When May is high and June is soon to rise, I don’t see Levi nearly at all. Little, busy high school boy. Looking back at my senior year exams, they feel like nothing now. Back then I thought I was in the craziest of ruts. I was sad, smoked weed and worked weird shifts in weird places to somehow force through things.

Levi’s daily regimen consists of morning sex, class, meeting tutors for extra credit and late shifts. Friday evenings he devotes himself to volleyball and Wednesdays somehow manage to sneak in there as well. Most nights he passes out on the couch with a wide variety of SATs surrounding him like some deity in a chapel or shrine.

I resurrect my dropped jerking habit because I can’t fall asleep without sex anymore.

The weekend before Levi’s last exam turns out to be free for us both, so we go to an underground show where a band called TESA performs loud percussion music and drink import beer in a brick booth. This is the first real conversation we’ve had in a while—and I’m very fond of it. Of course, the school topic surfaces within minutes, because students are unable to touch down anything that moves or isn’t school.

“We figured out the theme for our graduation party,” Levi states, moving his rings with his thumb. “It’s gold. Channel Russian royalty with an Anna Karenina themed thing. Think rich colors, rich clothes, lots of bling, stuff like that. I think that’s pretty neat, taken I’ve got a boner for anything that shines.”

“That sounds really bad and I like it.”

He leans back in the sofa and crosses his ankles. “You’re invited, by the way. Because I’m on a quest for someone who’s willing to handle photography or at least some kind of graduation memorial.”

“I’ll be on the clock in that case,” I mention over my beer. “If you want me as your plus one, I can’t be a photographer. It’s not like a high school grad party is the right place to make out, but I was lonely on mine and wanted nothing else but that.”

Levi coughs. He taps on the table and I push the pack of cigarettes over to him. We’re cool now, so we smoke Marlboro Reds. In order to find peace and reunion with Camels again, I have to smoke this. Let me pipe in—these are bad cigarettes.

“You could at least make us an old-school playlist,” he chimes. “I would trust you with that.”

“Oh, like 60’s all the way to 90’s?”

“Something like that.”

“Totally. Expect it to be heavily ABBA infused because anything ABBA has created beats Beethoven. Also, I’m not a photographer, so I can’t promise I’ll take pictures,” I say.

“You’re a better photographer than any of my photographer friends, so, please, suck on it.”

“I can.”

“You can what?”

“I can suck on it.”

Levi huffs into his glass. He looks at me and dismal is thoroughly plastered across his face.

“What’s the worst kind of person you’ve dated?” He asks. “Because for me, it’s you.”

The insult flies over my head. “A clothing designer from France,” I say once I’ve formed a thought. “Worst experience ever. I can't blame all of them, but having trimming shears thrown at you in an unabashed act of French passion is the last thing you need to have happen.”

“You think that’s bad?”

“I think that’s pretty bad.”

“What about serial killers?”

“Even that is slightly better.”

He becomes thoughtful.

* * *

Journal entry:

_May 25 th. My mind begins wedding arrangements and I hate myself for it. _

_There’s just something about Levi in a suit. But with, like, a posh white garter belt and thigh highs underneath._

_He split his shin at the pool today. Now he wobbles around with a stiff leg. He says it hurts a lot._

* * *

On Friday evening, Levi comes home with some puzzling news. The second he walks through the door, he starts talking.

“Since we’re done with exams, my class is going on a field trip,” he states, shedding clothes as he walks to the fridge, then chugs OJ straight out of the jug before he goes on. “Oh, that’s good. Anyway, we’re staying in Philly for almost a week. That’s crazy! I want to take you along, but I’m not sure I can.”

Here I come in the picture, lying shirtless on the couch downstairs. Two fans are pointing at me because it’s otherwise impossible to breathe.

“Hi?” I meekly try.

“Hey.”

I scratch my forehead. “Uh, I don’t think you can take me with you. I’d have to drive you or something, and I can’t this time. And I can’t shake the fact that I’ll feel severely too old for that kind of thing.”

“Not by much,” he comments, shaking the jug. The pulp glistens under kitchen lights and settles once more. “You look younger than you are.”

“Well, four years is a lot if you’re underage. Everyone sheds years if they shave. It’s fine if you go.”

“Is it wrong I want you to come along?”

“Oh, no. What?”

“Sounds like you’re not really willing to.”

“I just want you to understand I’m occupied with other things, and some of them I can’t postpone,” I say. “I work under people. I’m not, you know, independent. The free time I have is already more than my work hours deserve.”

He prolongs that little angry glare of his and turns away. “Sure.”

“Plus it’s a school thing. And you’re a senior. I’m out of college. I used to _go_ there. People don’t know about us.”

 _“Okay,”_ Levi drags the word out.

“You’re mad,” I rhetorically conclude. “I don’t get why this is such a big deal. Why this is even _a_ deal.”

“I’m _balding_ from stress,” he hastily replies. “I have so much on my plate already and people are bringing me seconds. I’m bringing _myself_ seconds, and then Joseph orders dessert. And then you come in and flip me off. You’re the only person I ever want to be around, and you push me away.”

This is not at all what I was trying to achieve.

I cross my arms and start picking at my dry elbow as we watch each other from a grand distance. His left index is digging into his thumb.

“Is everything okay?” I carefully ask over my beating heart. It’s heavy in its rhythm, for some reason.

“I’m going out for a smoke.”

“Need company?”

“I don’t want to talk. I had a...bad fucking day.”

He takes my coat and heads for the balcony.

We don’t talk much that night.

* * *

Journal entries:

_May 27 th, Saturday. Stuck with work on my documentary. Nothing is happening. Levi has become almost annoying by cutting contact with the outside world; me included._

_He ate my fucking Clif bars and canned bean sauce._

_My theater is getting ready for a debut play and I’ve gruesomely realized I won’t make it to Levi’s graduation ceremony. I don’t really know how to tell him that; who knows which wire to cut on this silly ticking bomb._

_My Tourette’s is wilding. Went on an Amazon book binge. Bought pomade, too._

_I’m not even going to read these books._

* * *

_May 28 th, Sunday. I am currently a drainpipe of emotion._

_I was skinning apples last night when Levi barged in my room and asked if he could go through my underwear. When I asked why, he explained he’s leaving the following day, and that some form of me has to be brought along to Philly. I mean, I gave him my boxers, but for what good?_

_Less laundry this week. Happy about that. Not very excited about being left alone._

* * *

_May 29 th. Monday. I drove him to his desired drop-off right by Chipotle. I was thinking we’d have sex before he left, but we didn’t even sleep in the same room. He left my car with a chaste kiss, saying he won’t be away for “that long”, as if his sense of time was somewhat palpable anyway. “Five days—that’s nothing,” Levi said, pulling on the straps of his backpack. “You waited your whole life for me. You’ll last five days.”_

_I can’t shake the feeling he’s lost interest. I had something you could call a panic attack in my car, next to fucking Chipotle, and then binged on two chicken wraps._

_I drove to Blue Salem and got drunk. Called off work today. No one was happy about that because of the upcoming debut._

* * *

My house now feels like a prison cell I’d built to isolate myself from the outside world. It used to feel empty when Levi was out working, but there was always that debilitating chance of him coming back home. Now odd eeriness stretches through the corridors as the clock ticks further and further on past eight and there’s no sign of his loud arrival.

I try desperately to tell myself he’s a teenager with no real concept of how relationships work, but I know it’s not true. He’s a fucking writer. Writers can play dumb all they want, but their brain never stops working. They don’t slack off. Their train of thought is always, always, _always_ running, they notice things others don’t, and they lie so much better than anyone else on the world. I’ve found out writers are pathological liars by nature. The worlds they construct in their minds can be as convincing as the foul lies they speak.

There is something bothering Levi, and I don’t know what it is, and I don’t know if it’s me or not. Is he deliberately avoiding me? What for? Have I done something I’m not aware of?

Should I have gone with him? Was the stupid field trip _that_ important?

I know it wasn’t. I know it wasn’t, because I know what Levi values.

He’s torn off the enamoring charm and replaced it with qualities I don’t understand. His approach to any minor difficulty is completely irrational. He’s become…distant. Figuratively and literally. If school, work and what’s been going on between us is too much, I have the brain capacity to understand, but to be worked out, it needs a degree of honesty and communication.

This miscommunication is terrifying. I’m losing my composure by hour.

I wander around the house listening to Blue Öyster Cult. I eat grapes and chase them with whiskey. I’m restless. I’m bothered. Were I a guitar, all of my strings would be tuned the wrong damn way.

Finally I cave in and head to the sunroom. My body craves wallowing in nostalgia and breathing my lungs full of Levi’s expensive cologne until I’m all soaked up and high. Every cell in my body is suddenly in dire, rupturing need of him, of closeness and understanding, and I want to throw myself on his bed and frivolously shake until these five feverish days go by.

Once I pass the doorframe, it all comes down. The smell I love that won’t ever seem to fade from my memory, incense, streetlights that look like whisked egg yolk trying to break through the heavy drapes, my rope, his coats, his clothes, his everything. It’s all here as proof he’ll be back and that five days apart won’t tragically disturb my mental state.

I shyly walk around the room as if it weren’t my own house. My fingers run over salvaged cabinets and folded clothes atop. I expect dust to build up under my nails, but there is no residue, and I’m suddenly happy Levi cleans his room.

He hasn’t put much of himself into the interior. The room is mostly left as it was given to him. No posters, nothing that would really give way such an explosive personality resides here. There is, of course, a desk at which he studies and writes, and on it is a set of calligraphy pens I brought back from the storages, some worn books, magazines, destroyed letters, crumbled advertisements, tons of little flyaway papers and ripped pages, a whole necklace of condoms and his trademark folded white t-shirt as the cherry on top.

Aided by whiskey, I pick up the shirt and press my nose into it.

I immediately pull away.

It smells of weird musk and smoke.

Through my continuously dizzying vision I sniff the shirt again, and once more, and it without doubt does smell almost exactly like I did after recording the Wallace fire. It was folded—therefor it should’ve been clean. I run my hands along the fabric to check for any stains or marks, and my thumbs stop on a dirty, but perfectly round circle right on the hem.

I stare down at it like it’s my first time seeing what happens to a white shirt after you use it to wipe the neck of a gas can.

I zone out and gape at the wall. What did he wear when we burned furniture? I can’t fucking remember. Was it this shirt? That was forever ago, anyway. We’ve mulled through two cycles of laundry since then for sure. He owns a million of these shirts.

 _No,_ my head is breached with an intrusive light, _Levi wore your Rush shirt. So when is this from?_

I’m filled with enough shock value audacity to drop the shirt on the floor and open his drawer. It’s my first impulsive decision. All it contains is my blue lighter taking the role of a despot over three more lighters. The drawer under it is filled with notebooks, and the bottom one is disappointingly empty. When I stand from my crouching position, I lean my hip against the desk and stare down at the wrinkled shirt.

My mind starts crawling with an intoxicating, uninvited thought that is so cold and unforgivable it feels like the dirty sleet on roads you see in late February. Even the whiskey in my stomach seems to vaporize as I feel like I gain literal clarity upon all my surroundings. I guess I am forced by some weird gut feeling when I walk to the garage and open up the trunk of Karen’s car.

My gut feeling simmers down: even after rummaging, I find nothing other than a lousy first aid kit. I stand by the car, arm prepped on the headliner.

I feel like an idiot. I don’t even know what I was looking for.

The rest of my evening is spent in the living room while I’m picking at my tendency to overthink. Not to beat myself up about everything, but man, do I prove myself a fool. The human race was capable of inventing advanced technology, leading wars and creating empires, but when it comes to love, we lose our heads. We should’ve been beyond this.

But even after hours of lounging around in shorts, I’m still restless. In the reflection of my laptop, I notice my tics going off and close the lid.

A lot of things in life make me queasy, but only one of them is a known trigger for my Tourette’s to show: fear. Whatever penetrates my brain deep enough is registered as fearsome. Whatever doesn’t make sense, whatever I don’t know of, I immediately run from.

Don’t think about it.

Stop thinking about it.

Think of it less.

Think of something else.

Anything.

I'm limp in my seat, in my momentary defeat. Peace won't be found unless I feed my interest, but something tells me asking Levi directly isn't what's right.

I could've picked Teddy and buried him in suspense. I could've blamed the firefighters, or Joseph, because their lack of empathy towards the Greencastle population can be alarming. There are so many people I could blame to ease my uneasiness. What I never hoped for was thinking it's Levi who did it. Not even for a second did I consider this, since my sense of rationality was clouded thick with possessive intentions.

Letting the thought ring out loud in my head is a bad idea, because things involuntarily click together and start making sense. And the more I think of them, the more logical they become. I want to believe this is a delirium of mine, that associating him with arson is just a byproduct of loneliness and the abrasive disconnection we had before he left. Always believing some righteous truth about how good a person is has an end date. The rose-tinted glasses on the bridge of my nose had chewed their way into my skin.

I pour some more whiskey and battle myself between the torture of five days and intrusion of personal space.

I weigh in for the latter. I'll go through his shit tomorrow.

* * *

My wake is distressed and early. Almost foggy through the blinds, barely dim-lit, my room is still dark at this hour. My face itches and my hair is all kinky, so I must've tossed around at night. The whiskey from last night has caramelised my saliva and it tastes a little like molasses. Barely sliding out of bed, I lean over the edge and fish out my cigarettes. The rule of not smoking inside will be annulled today.

After lighting my Camel, I lie flat on my back and stare at the ceiling.

“Through darkness, towards the light within,” I silently say, still taken aback by the vivid dreams I had I can no longer remember.

The ceiling doesn’t respond.

This morning is very Revenantish. In its essence, and maybe in what awaits. I know I’m putting off going through Levi’s things for a sensible reason. It just happens to be that people tend to find what they don’t want to, and this is a preemptive golden rule my life strictly follows.

I flick the ash in the empty glass on my nightstand and turn to the wall.

“I don’t want to do this,” I tell it, hoping for something reassuring. “You know? I want to stay within the belief that everything is alright.”

The wall doesn’t respond either.

“Thanks.”

Getting up is harder than I thought. My feet drag me to the shower and I lifelessly stand under running water until it grows cold. Air is already stifling, and the sun is barely peaking over the mountain riff. I work up a sweat while brushing my teeth. My drying baby hairs curl in the humid bathroom air.

What I thought today would be was exactly what it was—the tinder dry air of late May and ringing silence in the corn fields all around. Sitting outside on the shaded terrace with the sun burning my thighs wherever it can reach, I smoke again, fingers pressed between the pages of my journal. It’s coming to an end at the seams and running out of pages.

I don’t have much to do today. Editing class at six, work at eight, home by midnight.

The house is a little heavy on the cigarette smell, so I leave the door open and hope my neighbor’s cat doesn’t wander inside. Then, I languidly walk to the sunroom.

I open his closet and palm through his clothes, half of which I’ve never seen. The bottom shelf holds all his shoes, the top—hats. There’s a square basket I check that has jewelry, wide rings and leather bracelets. He’s never worn these. Maybe they’re his mother’s.

The closet smells like him so much I have to close it and sit down. Numbness takes over my arms, my legs, and I slide back until my head meets the pillow.

It _hurts_.

I’m looking for something I’m not even sure is true; at least I don’t list it as true in my head. It’s almost comical how I came to the assumption, but I have to break the hypothesis. I have to eliminate him from my list of suspense, because that shit will drive me mad. He is too good of a being to be capable of what my subconscious is inanely screaming at me.

It’s hard to get back up when everything is dragging me back down to the aroma of sun, love and lightheadedness. I run my fingers along the ridge of the bed, across the soft sheet and the clingy edge of it, closing my eyes at the feeling. Of belonging. Of knowing he belongs.

My thumb catches a little edge of something harder than a cotton sheet, and I look over my shoulder. Not that it crinkles, but my movement produces a stiff, papery sound. I pull at the sheet. A stack of small, folded papers, torn out from notebooks, various in size and line color stick out from in between the mattress and bedframe. I pick at them, and they come out in a whole hunch, held together by a rubber band.

Interest now piqued, I roll the band off and sort the papers in bed before me. Many show visible signs of aging, and the ink of some has spread under water or tears, or whatever that has gotten to them. Most corners are floppy; like the ears of a Labrador.

I pick out a newer looking one and slowly skim over it.

And once again, life sinks its teeth into my heart: these are all letters from his mom.

I don’t expect my eyes to well up midway through the letter, but they do, and I don’t wipe at them. Levi never told me he remained in contact with her; and if Joseph is any trustworthy, he’s not even allowed to. I think briefly of Kenny and whether he’s got anything to do with the letters. He probably has. He probably has everything to do with them.

Spending two hours going over intimate lines meant only for a son to read has brought me to an ultimate end. Kuchel writes mostly of Levi’s childhood, of the neglect she wishes she could take back and the days she wishes to relive again. Many of the older letters are written entirely in Russian, but a line or two surfaces in some recent ones as well. I imagine her shaky hand writing out lines in a language that isn’t hers—and when she can’t find the right words to say, she trusts their mother tongue to do the talking. It suddenly becomes apparent Levi loves her more than he loves his father. Kuchel connects with him in a way beyond just blood; in ethnicity, nationality and culture.

One letter gets me more than others. It’s rather brief and looks recent.

_Moy zoloto… Dushenyka. I wake up with this weight every morning. It presses on me until I’m tired. Sometimes it all feels like some sort of test._

_I haven’t seen my own handwriting in a while…and I would like to see yours._

_I will get well. Only to hold you, I will come to light._

I stop reading when I have to wipe my nose more often than I get to read a few words. Folding the letters like they were, I wrap them up and carefully push them back where they were found.

My chest feels hollow. I pat around the bed and lift his pillow, but nothing else is hidden here. There’s nothing underneath the bed, either, not even stuck behind the rails. None of the parquet planks are loose like you’d imagine in the movies, and, see, there’s nothing more in his room, just the closet, the desk and the bed.

I pull the curtains open, to let light in, and am surprised by how bright it’s gotten. My perception of time has become slightly skewed.

Back at the desk, I sit on the floor, legs crossed in front of me, and start going through his notebooks. It’s all school. Calculus. English. I beat the whole stack and sit back, almost disappointed.

From my position, as I’m leaning on my elbows, I see the bottom of the desk. Both sides of it are held up by the drawers, serving their purpose as legs. There is a built-in section I notice in the middle, but it has a lock, and after pushing and pulling I conclude it doesn’t budge at all. It seems more like an exterior detail than anything, but I know furniture; I’ve handled all kinds of carpenter customers and their left-behind storage garbage.

I run my fingers over where wood planes merge, stick them in every corner, just to check. Then I knock. The sound is rich and filled throughout, like a regular desk would. There is no hollow spot that would give way the slim drawer is functional.

Despite that, I trip down the stairs to get my toolbox from the garage. I shuffle through the whole mess, looking for the smallest slothead screwdriver I own. Deeming one as big as my middle finger the best choice, I rush back up the stairs, to the guest bathroom, and rummage through Christa’s shit. Her hair is short now, but she used to leave bobby pins in my car and I’m positive I have some here.

The only one I find is stuck to the bottom of a hairspray can. Grossed out, I pull it off and pluck at the stringy leftover spray to have a clean pin.

With this grand setup, I get back at the desk and start tweaking my way into the locked compartment. It doesn’t take long, but you can imagine my despair when I pull it open and face a dusty, empty drawer.

I plant my hands on my hips and say “fuck” several times. Then I turn around and kick the drawer close with the side of my knee.

The bottom panel of the desk gives out and lands on the floor, but it’s not the only thing that falls. Along goes a map, a picture that lands face-down, dollar bills, and…

Rubbing at my shin, I kneel down and pick up Levi’s journal.

It’s the same marbled notebook I first saw in the car and confused for mine. The corners are slightly charred, having survived an episode of being lit on fire, and the front has Levi’s name in Cyrillic.

Like a cat who has got the cream I flick through the pages and very well know that this is my magnum opus for today. It’s deliciously full of information, so I take a seat on the floor and rest my back against the bed. Cautiously, excitedly, stuck in this enormous maelstrom of emotion, I open up the first page.

The date goes back to March.

_March 22 nd. A glad farewell to Virginia today, which means a two-hour plane ride. Because I really don’t have a tight schedule, I have a lazy morning around the house, packing and watching TV, before I get on a bus to the city._

_Actually, it would be good to point out here that I didn’t go to McDonald’s for food, I finally tried out 80/20 and bought some sort of combo deal that had two burgers and shaker fries. Let me repeat that. Shaker fries. SHAKER FRIES._

_After eating, I get a cab to the airport and head to my gate. The flight is weird. Flying economy is…lame, na huy. Around now, I start roughly working out how to pronounce things in the countryside. Everyone on the plane rings country in my head. Some Korean lady threw up her bell pepper panini next to me. I gave her my bag, too._

I smile at the short entry. This is before either of us knew the other existed.

 _The love affair I have with Quality Inn is unparalleled thus far,_ says a lonesome scribble. The next entry doesn’t have a date mark.

_I’m guessing I’ve come to reflect a lot. I went for a walk to explore my new surroundings. No word of a fucking lie—I felt lost in the woods. I was standing at the crossroads, where one path lead to all that was safe and overlooked, while the other was uncertain and might’ve lead to a dead end._

_I’m filled with curiosity for the life I didn’t have just as much as terrifies me._

_I’ve always thought my mother gave me up for my own good. I’ve always believed she had my best interests at heart, but there has always been a very miniscule part of me that wonders if I tell myself that to negate the feelings of abandonment. My new parents always reinforced the idea that she’d loved me so much she did the best thing she could to me._

_If I were anything else, I’d be the water in her bath. I’d be happy to be the dust she sweeps under the rug, just to remain in her proximity. My emptiness has built her altar and I will worship myself in her forever._

The following sentences from two days later make my mouth stretch in a bittersweet smile.

_Dandy. Gradually coming to terms I’m the odd one out. They’re not my kind of people, and I’m not their kind of a person._

Lower it reads:

_I think it’s March 25 th. I found out they’re putting me in the dorms. Living with Joseph was what I expected but didn’t look forward to, so I’ll say I’m glad. As long as the dorms are okay. I’m not good with public washrooms._

_March 27 th. The dorms are not okay. Public washrooms. _

_March 28 th. _ _I will_ _masturbate myself into apathy and then get lunch. It’s probably in my best interest to stay off-putting to my roommate. She is psychotic in the heaviest sense of the word._

I skim over a few pages where he describes the dorms in a laughable manner; I never knew he could be funny in a refreshing way.

“March 30th,” I then excitedly read out loud, finally having found my birthday. But my excitement simmers down.

 _It feels as if the light that led the way has dimmed,_ Levi writes tidier than before. _I hit a plateau of emotion and tried calling Kenny, but he didn’t pick up. It’s almost like his number is blocked. I’m growing paranoid that everything has turned for worse. Somehow changing the scenery hasn’t helped like I thought it would. Being the outsider has been overly romanticized in media._

_Being the outsider is uglier than anything else in the world._

_My dissociative behavior climbed a mountain and I’m just waiting for the plunge. I hate how I have no say over it._

And under the same paragraph, visibly written in a different state of mind judging by how messed up Levi’s handwriting has become, it says:

_Who does resentment hurt most?_

_You carry it inside you. You hold it in your mind. It manifests itself into your thoughts, your behavior, the wrinkles on your face. It creates enemies, dillusions… The anger and emotion makes us forget this: that we are all human. We are all human, plagued by the same temptations and emotions. We fail every day. We succumb to our illusions and we make fucking mistakes._

_I expected a degree of regret… It never came. But the obsolete peace dusting over me spoke louder than words. I think… Maybe I should stop thinking._

When did he write that? That’s my birthday. We met that evening, and I doubt he wrote that after we parted. Confused, I keep on reading.

_It has taken me seventeen years to admit I’ve never met anyone like that before._

My heart melts into my chest.

_Smitten rhymes with kitten and I never liked to use the word, but this is going to bite back at me anyway: so, smitten. I was ready twist my own neck. If God really slacked on some people upon creation, I’ll say with little to no doubt he worked on Eren on a Monday. His beauty is calculated to be a ten on every existing scale of attractiveness that exists. Is this normal? To say that, is it normal?_

_Even if I don’t want him because my situation and rationale won’t allow it, I feel I have some sort of claim on him. A claim born from the very strength of my desire. The turmoil he arouses in me gives me some sort of right over him._

_You know, I’m convinced I deserve him more than anyone._

_And oh my god, I’m so fucking hungover._

This paragraph makes me feel so much all at once I’m not sure whether my heartbeat vanished or sped up to the point it dribbled like the wings of a hummingbird. I sit still with the journal in my hand, sinking in thoughts of how new and raw it all used to be between us back then, and how lost I had felt in my hunger for Levi. I was fucking drowning in it. It clouded my vision to the point I blindly grasped for all there was. Knowing he fought with it just as hard is comforting and sweet.

When things become as domestic as they are now, one would think the desire and want evaporates. To some—maybe, just like some need college for success. This is why I used to fear relationships—because I love when I love, and with my whole heart. And if I have to deal with someone losing interest, it tears me apart. People have a happy little box to put things in. They have standards they expect everyone to meet. Everything…makes sense to these people. When they don’t understand something, they distance themselves from it, so I just say what people want me to say and act like they expect me to.

I can’t change. I’ve spent my whole life trying to beat this. It’s my problem. I’ll deal with it until it clams my life. But once you realize it’s the consequence of innumerable factors outside my control, it’s easier not to take rejection personally.

I am okay with casual. I am okay with domestic. I’m not the kind of gigolo who seeks adrenaline within every step I take and every person I meet.

 _I seem to be addicted to something that doesn’t really exist. I have embarked upon withdrawal and I am very fearful of what the withdraw symptoms will be,_ is the opening for the next entry. _I notice that I’m subtle and coy...but when I make moves, they’re usually intense and over the top. I’m kind of embarrassingly passionate, always ardent and vulnerable._

_Why do I love and dislike at this magnitude? I sometimes resent myself… and then I remember: I channel._

My smile breaks through.

_Full moon. The mountain is full of light, as always. The river currents run in my favor. The worst of the storm has settled._

_I see the silver lining._

Not being consistent with dates and months, his journal confuses me. Organization was never his thing, he’s never been systematic or even close to that.

 _SILENCE IS GOLDEN BUT DUCT TAPE IS SILVER. IT'S NOT JUST ME AND IT SHAKES ME TO MY CORE_ , says an otherwise empty page. The following entries are short scribbles of poetry.

 _~~I am terrifying~~ _ _I am terrible in my fury and burn all in my rage_

_Everything is new, and…everything is the same._

_W_ _hen I got bored, I swallowed the sun_

_I even stared down the barrel of a gun._

I flip the page.

_There's more than one way_

_to bring down an empire,_

_skin a cat,_

_or take the fort._

_I’m a solar flare in armor,_

_dressed in faded lavender._

_I’m nitpicking._

_I’m one of those who bite the feeding hand_

_until it ~~arrives~~ passes like a storm in a litany_

_of all that is unsaid_

_washing down my tongue_

_as the most silent waterfall._

My head tilts back and meets the mattress, and I consider a cigarette break. But in the whim of emotion, I end up smoking where I sit, flipping through hasty lines of Levi’s writing.

Out of interest, and because I like to spoil things for myself, I find the latest entry. All it says is:

_MY ANGEL FROM MONTERREY_

_I’LL CLIP YOUR WINGS_

_I’LL STEAL YOUR HEART_

_AND EVERYTHING_

It takes me by surprise: I’m the angel from Monterrey. Clip my wings, though—why?

Flicking ash, I read backwards from now on.

_Found this thing by Bernard Tschumi, called Advertisements for Architecture. It says: “To really appreciate architecture, you may even need to commit a murder. Architecture is defined by the actions it witnesses as much as by the enclosure of its walls. Murder in the Street differs from Murder in the Cathedral in the same way as love in the street differs from the Street of Love. Radically.”_

_Good one._

_Me “losing it” has been annual for a good few years now. Sometimes I “lose it” more often, like weekly or even daily. What do you call the condition when… Hourly. Hourly! That is the word I was looking for. It’s an hourly thing now. Saying I’m petrified would be a joke. I am turning fucking inhumanely rancid in attitude and my personality is rotting. What. Fucking. Gives._

_This morning I realized: there is no moving on. No getting over anything. There is only, strictly and irreversibly, only running away._ _We are all in on this elaborate lie that I am._

_Yesterday I was a sun god again._

_What is important to me is that no one was supposed to get hurt. And I just won’t stop, so in the end, he’ll make me. And then rumor around town will run that we were in love, and he’ll say, “Yes, I loved him once.”_

_“Did you know him?” They’ll ask._

_“I never did,” he’d respond._

_It was a giant wave, a firestorm, rolling in on itself, undulating like some grotesque creature hell-bent on our murder. And in this mundane town of his, just an inch bigger than the dimes in my pocket, I was no more than an intruder._

My brows lower in confusion. When I flip the page, I notice my fingers going black from the soot all over Levi’s notebook. I wonder how he writes in it even.

_It’s the smell that gets to me the most, you know? It smells like…hell. Like I just stepped off a one-way train taking me to a meeting with Hades. It’s not until long after the fanatical satisfaction wears away that I feel something of responsibility._

I reread that and put my finger on the word “responsibility”.

My stomach twists, but not enough to cue Broadway-degree panic.

_The walls close in on me; they shame me for my inability to control myself. It’s not until the aftermath do I think about the consequences, or even care about them, if at all. The emotional buildup is all I think about. It has a way of squandering the willpower others have—a reminder I’m different—and all I see is red. I only have one color within my spectrum: red. Red. Everywhere._

My thumb smudges the soft pencil this is written in. I see the next line, and my stomach dips.

_I can’t explain the gratification from seeing it burn, from having started it myself._

I read the sentence backwards, hoping it would help unread it.

_I made a continuum of chaos happen._

It’s his handwriting.

 _Do you know what that feels like? In an instant you may have incinerated something, but at least you are the master of your own universe. Yeah…_ _That’s what it’s like. Master of your universe. It gives great way to self-control._

_I had my own trademark way... Someone else is having it, too._

My eyes widen to the point my lashes tickle the browbone. It’s hard to close them; my eyelids are sticky from tears, sweat… From hard-hitting distrust.

It feels like my body is telling me to never close them again.

* * *

Journal entry:

_I ate._

* * *

Sounds of tapes, old and worn. The hum of a fresh vinyl, CDRs skipping. Glitchy files. Images as MP3s. JEPs as AIFFs.

The main soundtrack of an old British horror film, widely known as The Whistle Song from Kill Bill plays four consecutive times as someone’s ringtone. Fugazi. Slint. Prince’s private practice tapes.

Editing class has never felt so wrong.

My vapid expression has given away I’m having a bad day. People who normally walk up to me and chat about daily mendacities walk around my table and take seats. I dryly shake some hands, being too out of it to look anyone in the eye.

I never understood until now.

I didn’t feel safe tainting my journal with this discovery, so I filled it with mundane everyday things I don’t even do. Editing class. Working in the garden. Swimming. Reminiscing of him. Calling Christa. Calling Jean. Calling my parents. Swimming. TV.

When I write about how much I love him, my hands shake, because something within me has ruptured. I don’t know what scares me more: being blinded by the light of his surrealistically fake being, or still _being in love with him._

When I get home from work, some change past midnight with a quick drop-by at Panera to suffer credibly more emotional damage, I have late dinner at the dining table no one ever eats at. The house is emptier than ever and Southern current draught whistles through the living room.

No more do I wish to spread his cologne around and let it linger in the air.

No more do I feel a tide pull.

Because of how much it meant to us, I put F#a#infinity on vinyl and mouth along the lyrics with a broken sound from deep within. My eyes haven’t stopped welling up since the morning.

F-sharp, A-sharp… Infinity. That’s why my last relationship failed—because it was so superficial and rushed it was palpable, it had no foundation. But in no way can it compare to what we have. There isn’t a lot that can stand next to the grand magnitude of Levi and I.

My cheeks are burning in well-contained anger and distortion. When I raise my hand to rub the heat away, I feel myself crying.

Have I been so detached? I thought pink only tints and freshens up your perception, not consumes it whole. Hours, days, weeks and months of refusal and love-induced blindness to factually obvious things have now led me to a dead end. I’ve been chasing around town for something that doesn’t exist, been skeptical towards people that didn’t deserve it and taken a psychopath under my wing. I guess—I guess he wasn’t lying to me. He said he was a bad person, through and through, and I just never listened. Not even once did I consider…

Not even once.

F#a#infinity rings through the room with The Dead Flag Blues. Hearing the opening buzz of apocalyptic dread makes me close my eyes.

_I said, "Kiss me, you're beautiful. These are truly the last days."_

_You grabbed my hand and we fell into it, like a daydream or a fever._

Hollowed by pain, I sit back and cathartically cry.


	8. Houdini (Eighth Circle)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So now that André Aciman has patented fucking a peach, idk what to do with this story. This was the hardest chapter to write. I'll edit this the moment I get a full night's fucking sleep
> 
> [Gazastrippin](https://gazastrippin.tumblr.com) on Tumblr.
> 
> [Playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/hentaivert/playlist/2rND5iE0iUjELcUuuIYn1o) here.

It’s dawn.

I am in pain.

I have no one to turn to but myself.

* * *

Journal entry:

_There are many things I’ve pondered of as I’ve watched my life pass me by. One of them, I’ve noticed, is reoccurring—a delightful spark of hope my life takes on an adventurous twist, and that I never get to sink in a mundane nine to five._

_I did want a mundane nine to five at some point. I think that wish took place after Ymir and I called it quits. Dragging ourselves across the continent for months made me miss the substance and order my life used to have. Chaotic is not my field, I’ve realized. Maybe it has something (or everything) to do with aging, but then again… Turning twenty and more isn’t anyone’s immediate turning point, nor a rule written in stone._

_I was living a structured and quite boring life despite working the jobs I always wanted to and putting my whole career into some decent perspective. Being busy, there wasn’t much time to think of all the “ifs”. Sorrow was stripped out of my everyday train of thought. But when my real “coming of age” phase settled, just a week or so prior to the birthday itself, I reel all of that collected mindset back to be as raw in my painful self-awareness as possible. I then endure weeklong suffering, being only at the mountain riff that belies the real pain about to come._

_Levi’s arrival is a refreshing experience. He’s something new. Not like all Pennsylvanians. Not like…anyone. At first I assume I could yield him time before consuming his entire existence by force, but then the thought of ownership infests my body without question, and there is no way out._

_I am pulled into this corrupt dream._

_It might’ve just been the time spent single that made me so naïve and quick to jump, or maybe the spiteful hope that this will be different than usual—because he’s from somewhere else, a poet, a writer, unpredictable and educated, and knowing, and… No, I don’t believe it was Levi alone. Levi alone has no might to break me. There is some continence I truly take pride in, so my uncharacteristic hastiness to have, to OWN—it scared me._

_And yet, my great triumph and fall, in the back of my mind sits a whisper that maybe it was him alone._

_He’s like a nymph. Arrogant due to his self-proclaimed brilliance, good-looking to the point you begin to question religion, and catastrophically dangerous in his ~~destructive~~ nature. And despite everything he has done to the town I grew up in, my own good intentions are stained—I went through his belongings without his permission. That means he is now given the option to blackmail me for not trusting him._

_I wonder, now, I really wonder, how else would I have found out? Was this the best case scenario—not facing him up-front? Not having to look him in the eye? Not having to watch him go to jail, or a mental institution? Being all but a bystander within this big scheme of things going down, is that it, is that what I want?_

_Now that time ticks forward and days pass, I grow strangely one with the thought. See, it feels as if I’ve cried about everything that was shoveled up inside me. And with all the pent up emotions trickling down my cheeks, joy has left as well._

_And I realize now, as I’m writing this, that when the day comes for him to leave, I won't have the courage to help sort through his things._

* * *

To avoid the risk of getting caught when he comes back, I tear these pages from my journal, fold them and put them in my wallet. They rest easy between business cards and checks.

Like an idiot, I spend the few days without Levi just loitering around the house, thinking what to do and how to react to my discovery. He doesn’t call or text me consistently. We exchange a few words over messages. Despite my several breakdowns, it feels as if nothing has changed.

The most unsettling thing is feeling… _detached_ from the terror his actions caused. I can’t even describe my take on it. I feel desensitized.

Yeah, it happened. But I sent a good morning text like it didn’t.

Yeah, it might happen again. But I asked about his day anyway.

This and that burned down. Is it the end of the world?

Fuck.

I told him I loved him over the phone last night. He said he misses me. He asked how _mamá_ was. If I’m eating well. Hearing his voice again filled my heart full to the brim. I couldn’t believe this coy, timid undergrad was capable of burning a whole RV village down. He spoke so freely of his trip, of the place they’re staying in, what he ate for breakfast, how he’s longing to touch me again, sleep in on a Saturday morning, have mind-blowing sex…

 _But he lied to you_ , and the lies are just about everything he is. His whole picture is sustained by lies. Nothing he’s said feels tangible anymore. I don’t know if _not_ _saying_ something counts as lying, but I feel betrayed like never before. It’s troubling. It’s like he never spoke of it because I never asked—like would’ve told me, _if only I’d asked._

I’m not even sure if his feelings are genuine. I have now come to the point where I doubt reality as a construct. Levi is possibly the one and only person to have sunk so deep into my heart, and my heart breaks from the thought I’ve been used as decoy.

Everything hurts. The moral pain has manifested its way into my body. I can feel myself wither. I don’t take showers anymore, I don’t shave, I barely change clothes. The weather is drastically different than a few weeks ago—it’s now hot and all my cotton t-shirts smell like old sweat. While working, if I graze my upper lip, it tastes salty.

I can’t do anything. I don’t eat.

I’ve lost faith in him. In him, and in everything else.

I welcome my impiety in its full form.

* * *

The morning before he arrives back home, I go out and mow the lawn. It takes a few hours. I never thought listening to the blaring roar of my mower would have a calming essence to it. It felt fantastic to have my brain reset by incoherent noise.

Tired from the sun gnawing at my bare torso, I push the mower to the toolshed and walk around the house to take the main door. My feet are bright green from the saturated juice of the lawn.

I consider going for a swim before finishing the rest. The icy blue oasis my pool creates looks tempting. Looking at it reminds me of Levi and his carelessness, and I faintly smile, my arms hanging numb by my sides. The warmth in my chest then dissipates, and I turn around on my heel to go get mail.

Our mailbox—weird that I automatically deem it as _ours;_ our mailbox, our house, our relationship—is stuffed full of church flyers and costly car rental ads. On the very top sits a white envelope with Levi’s name on it. The sender’s address is 600 North Jackson Street, Greencastle.

I lick around my mouth, tasting the signature salt I’ve gotten used to. That’s where the police department is, and the realization is ominous. My heart surely trips, maybe beats heavier, even. I turn the envelope around.

Yeah. It has the whole logo and everything.

I walk back to the house, looking quite confused at what Levi has received. Because the recipient’s address was originally the dorm street and is now striked out beneath my own address means he’s now declared here. I wonder if Joseph did it.

I carefully open the envelope, which is now the second privacy breach.

Thick letters spell out “NOTICE OF TRAFFIC VIOLATION”. It doesn’t say much more on this side, so I flip the paper over. On the other side it says:

**_SPEED LIMIT_ **

**_Reason You Received This Notice_ **

_A vehicle registered in your name was videotaped failing to follow an official speed limit, or the registered owner of this vehicle shown in this citation has submitted an Affidavit naming you as the driver of the vehicle at the time of the offense._

**_You are encouraged to view the video of this violation prior to your court._ **

Cool. He’s going to fucking court for speeding?

On the bottom of the page it names the ways to solve this complaint otherwise. I inspect the page for any more notes, but it’s all formal text about the court process.

I get my phone and scroll through my contacts. It takes a few beeps to reach Joseph.

He picks up. **“Hello?”**

“Hey, Joseph! Hi. I just checked my mailbox and found out Levi got a traffic fine on 81 some two days ago.”

The line goes silent. All I hear are clicks and office background noise. **“A speeding ticket?”** Joseph inquires. **“Was it Karen’s car?”**

“Yeah. This says he was doing over 90 in a 50.”

**“When was that?”**

“29th of May? Let me check.” I flip it around. “Yes. Wait, he left on the 28th. Wait, no. He got this ticket on the day he left—but I…”

_I drove him._

**“At what time was this?”**

My heart tries hammering a hole through my chest. I flip the paper over and over like a madman, as if that would change the date somehow.

I realize I haven’t replied, but I’m not capable of doing so, because everything is washing over me in small ripples, and then suddenly all at once.

“Uh…” is all I manage.

 **“Eren?”** Joseph probes. **“Who issued that?”**

My chest heaves. “Hey, listen, Joseph? I’ll call you back later. Something came up. I really have to run some errands, so I’ll call you some other time, yeah?”

**“Let me—“**

I drop the call before he says anything and throw my phone on the kitchen counter. It slides dangerously close to the edge, but I don’t care at this point.

I dropped Levi at Chipotle that morning. It was 10 AM. I saw him walk around the corner. I ate there, cried in the car and smoked about seven cigarettes altogether. That sums up to an hour and change. Couldn’t be much more than that. Maybe it wasn’t even an hour, maybe it was less than an hour.

The speeding ticket was issued at 10:38 AM.

And it was Karen’s car, which is back in the garage. He went home after I dropped him off—while I was crying my heart out in the parking lot of Chipotle—took the car, went god knows where, and drove it back. All in a little less than forty minutes.

 _He’s not on a school field trip,_ the voice in my head outright _screams_.

I just know he’s not. It’s not me being paranoid. His backpack was too big for a trip where you stay at a cottage and eat s’mores. He had boots strapped to it, but never mentioned any hikes planned. It’s already awfully warm outside, but I saw him fold my North Face windbreaker so it fits in the backpack. I remember him turning his head, looking at me—me, where I was standing, watching him through the gap of the door—and asking: “Well, what if it rains? I’ll be damn soaked, won’t I?”

On our way to Chipotle, in his hands, his fingers covered in silver rings, he was holding my old copy of Into The Wild.

He was languid with responses when I asked where would they stay, what would they do, and where should I pick him up once he comes back.

I sit down, close my eyes and take a deep breath.

A question begging to be answered chimes in my fucking ears.

_Where is Levi?_

A lot of vital time is spent while I march back and forth in the kitchen, biting the skin off my fingers, wondering whether I should call him and frantically scream about every single thing that upsets me. Then, in a quick wave of ravishing anger, I pick up my phone and try to call Joseph. Thank god the line is taken, because my idiot brain reminds me I’m not the only one being lied to, and that, in the end, I don’t wish any more trouble upon Levi, and consequentially myself, so I drop the call and turn my phone off to avoid making mistakes.

I turn it back on five minutes later.

Fuck my job and fuck the debut play. I spend hours browsing over archived news rolls for any new information on Levi’s domestic little hobby. My phone goes off the first hour I count as late for work, and then I turn it off again. My manager is going to kill me. For the first time in forever, I couldn’t give a single fuck.

There is nothing on the news. It’s been over a week with no arson terror in town and out of it. I check every channel. I phone Reiner and ask him if they archived the Wednesday podcast, but he says there’s nothing of interest—that everything seems to have settled down.

Of course. Of course, it’s because Levi’s out of town—god knows where, though, but out.

The fire station dispatcher Joseph lets me call tells me their only deploys have been technical. And that, apparently, there was a minor car fire just out of town. The driver was drunk and looped himself around a lamppost.

“But that doesn’t sound like arson,” she says to me.

“Likewise,” I reply.

Mildly confused I write notes for the days nothing has happened and lock them up in my room’s bottom desk drawer. I put the key next to my dog tag. They both dangle on my chest when I walk back outside to finish the lawn. I need to steam down.

My mower coughs when I prime it, so I go to the shed to get some gas. Inside it’s dark, stuffy and full of pollen. I push the door open with my foot and block it with a brick.

Light pours into the toolshed.

My eyes fix on the one bright, off-putting object inside: the red gas can. I tilt my head in disbelief. It stands where I usually put it. It wasn’t there when we burned the couches, and I hadn’t seen it up until now.

I know I didn’t put it there.

Levi did.

He put it _back._

* * *

**“Hello, Greencastle-Antrim’s newspaper "Echo Pilot”, how may I help you?”**

“Hey. Is Annie in?”

**“Who am I speaking to?”**

“Eren Jaeger.”

**“One second, sir.”**

I twirl a curl around my index while fuzzy music plays from the speaker. My lips are all chewed red.

After my fatal realization that Levi took the gas can and lied about not having seen it, I went inside and banged my hand against the kitchen wall. I stood there for some good ten minutes shaking like a frivolous animal. My palm is sore, but at least I don’t feel like shit as much.

 **“Eren?”** Annie’s calm voice fills my ear. **“You could’ve called my mobile.”**

“Yeah, I can’t touch my phone right now and I don’t want to talk about it. When do you get out?”

 **“In…”** I hear paper rustle. **“Well, a good few hours. Why?”**

“Great. You guys still have the scanners, don’t you?”

**“We do, but you’re gonna need authorization for that.”**

“Oh, you think I’m calling you to ask about the weather?”

She stays silent. I realize I shouldn’t have been so harsh, taken I’m the one who needs a favor.

“I didn’t mean to sound like an asshole,” I apologize.

 **“You don’t sound like an asshole,”** she says.

“I _am_ an asshole.”

**“Exactly.”**

In the context of this whole hell I’m being put through, what Annie said cracks me up. “Look, I can explain. This documentary—well, I’m sure you know of it through someone, if not, it’s not of matter—it’s stressing me out, and I can’t drive by work, because I—well, I didn’t go today. So school is out of question, since it’s right there. I just need to scan some things and get them loaded, but I can do that myself.”

I take a breather after that whole mess and hope she at least somewhat understands.

Annie doesn’t talk. Then she speaks up: **“You haven’t been this incomprehensible in a while. I mean, sure, I’ll be here until late afternoon. Just drop by whenever and ring my office, I’ll get down and give you the card.”**

“Thank you, you’re being great help right now.”

**“Sure.”**

“Really, Annie.”

She drops the call. I decide on going there immediately. While tying my Old Skools, I press my lips against my cargo-covered, propped knee, and think.

Annie has been pensive with me for a few years now. I never thought her subtlety would stretch out for over a month, but being occupied with finalizing my own plans, I couldn’t keep up with time, so the month grew into years. We graduated together as good friends. That very friendly incline dipped after a night spent together in my, at the time, quite new Impala she wanted me to call Morrissey because of the remarkable amount of The Smiths we’d been having. Uncharacteristically, _she_ came on to _me,_ and her excuse was that it’s been long since she’s had a partner, but Annie and I had been eyeing each other for most of our high school years, and we both knew it wasn’t true.

I had recently come back from visiting Maine in celebration of being accepted into the film school of my dreams. Maybe if I hadn’t been so thoroughly obnoxious with channeling my recent breakup with Ymir by senselessly fucking every other person I wanted in a town I would later know every corner of, I wouldn’t have settled on men with such burning dedication. The rare times I think of Annie, I wonder if she were to be the buoy in my sea of rut and apathy if I hadn’t pushed her away, and, in some stupid spell of disgust, said: “Sorry, I think I’m gay.” The word never spread, because it’s Annie we speak of, but since then everything between us has been nothing but wary and cold.

It’s weird asking for a favor now. It’s like the only truly preliminary favor she’s done for me is keeping quiet about what I said to her.

I’ve settled on the grand demise of Levi’s secret. I’ve split myself in two: a part of me wants to get him out of my system and breed distrust and aversion, so when my knowledge comes to light, I’m not as hurt by his maniacal reaction, pleas, or whatever else he might then present. The other part, however, holds the strong essence of that undying, billowing love I have for him that doesn’t seem to cease even after this discovery. Whichever part of me he gets depends on how perfected his justifications are going to be.

I finished tying my shoes long ago. I’ve been staring at the kitchen wall I previously beat, tugging at my socks.

* * *

Two scanned versions of Levi’s journal sit neat in my backpack, in the passenger seat of my car, along with the dirty notebook itself. Now I can put the condoned original back in its place and read over the copies as many times as I want: I can have them as morning literature, as lunch newspaper, as bedtime stories, transcribe them into music and spray paint them onto walls all over town.

I’ve already thought of ways to flesh this out to full proficiency, if I ever dull myself to a point where I don’t care about a single second Levi and I have spent together. It’s backup. It’s getting him out of my system: my conscious detox of vitamin Levi.

The Impala parked, I get back inside, throw the copies on the kitchen counter for later revision and head out for a well-deserved cigarette. As I pull on it, I think of tomorrow morning, of the very hour he arrives back home. I should be here, since I only work in the late afternoon. I sway between pretending I’m still as clueless as I was before he left, maybe still as hurt by his distancing, and turning his whole pandemonium upside down, but feel—and _know,_ not just feel, that my joy of his arrival will be genuine no matter what. I’ve truly missed him. This has been the longest period of time we’ve been apart, asides from the subsided life I was leading before he came and housed himself in my heart.

I smoke, looking down at the lawn I mowed and the pool whose calm ripples glisten in the soft yellow haze of the minutes before a golden hour.

Once inside, I go upstairs, to my room, and pick out the camera Jean and Christa collectively put together for my birthday. Slung on my neck, it lands low and pulse-like blows against my stomach with every movement of mine as I clean up Levi’s room for it to look untouched. I put the journal back, slide the hidden panel, and lock the drawer. I fold the unforgiving, white shirt. The letters. When all is set back in place and carries no sign of my intrusion, I turn the camera on and walk through everything in the very same order I did the first time, collecting evidence in the form of seconds ticking in my viewfinder.

* * *

Upon reading over one of the copies of Levi’s journal just before going to bed, I notice entries I’ve missed when I first skimmed it; probably too focused on the days I remember noting as important myself. It doesn’t look like he feared a single thing writing this out—I wouldn’t either, if I had the word of god no one is going see it.

 _His obscure Americanisms are driving me insane,_ says an entry I would guess was made around the time we were just getting used to each other. _He clacks his tongue sometimes, right as he looks at me, after saying one of said Americanisms, and there’s promising glimmer in his eyes when he does that. Sometimes looking at Eren hurts—hurts in a good way. A delicious, lazy, languid pain that seeps through my bones, so centered, pronounced and strong. When this phenomenon occurs, I feel like I can submit to him. He could bend his finger this or that way, and I would leap off bridges if he wanted me to. Within him is something raw and very powerful, and beyond fear, what I feel working its way into my head, is immense attraction._

_I’m trying to put two and two together and piece why someone like him would want me to move in. Not that I’m dismissive of my looks or how interesting I might come off to other people, but it feels like he sees past that, just like I see past him. We put up facades in front of other people while remaining transparent to each other. Eren knows how old I am. I know how old he is. He takes it into consideration first. The rest is subjective, but it’s clear he wants to improve my circumstance because I’m just some kid from Virginia who never deserved what he got._

_Not sure how to thank him yet. I feel like throwing myself onto him, licking long lines from his collarbone to jawline, pressing myself against him so there is nothing of his body mine wouldn’t touch, huffing like a gun dog—but I’ll settle for a “thank you”, I think._

* * *

_I’m drowning in his smell. It’s in the bed sheets he gave me. The curtains, though old and heavy, carry it, too. When my French window is open and moves back and forth in draught, instead of ridding my room of Eren’s summery scent, his aggressive, persistent musk, sweet cologne and laundry detergent, it only makes it settle stronger. I can’t read more than half a page on any book I pick up. I have to put my fingers in between the pages, let it sit on my stomach as I take it all in. Sometimes I lay here for an hour straight, my eyes closed, the smell of Eren shielding me from everything that wants to do harm._

_It was this way only with my mom. The very fact that I see parallels between him and the only person I care about in this world scares me._

* * *

_Time to time, I see him shirtless in the kitchen. We don’t catch each other being home at the same time too often, so I value the times it happens. He works on the couch downstairs, usually in just shorts, his built torso relaxed, skin dark, but glistening in the lonesome light above the coffee table._

_Today I sat in the kitchen, by the counter, and watched him. I studied him carefully, since he was working and rarely paid attention to his surroundings then. Eren has a hell of a cock. This both worries me and makes my blood boil. He wore ugly, but effective grey pants, laid himself sideways and dug his knuckles deep in his cheek. His right leg was up. Pretending I was checking the fridge, I looked at him instead._

_I could’ve sworn my entire body screamed for it. It screams for it still. I wonder if it’s easy for him to be so oblivious to my serious pry to be fucked, for once and for good, for the first time ever, by someone I feel an almost abnormal connection with._

_I fucked my mattress ten minutes ago. It was too much. I wrote the first sentence of this entry while lying on my stomach, started thinking about Eren, and my hips did all the work. I have to wash the fucking bed sheets now. And to get to the basement, where the laundry machine is, I have to pass Eren in his grey pants._

* * *

_I told him in the most blunt way possible that I wanted him. He cast me away._

_I’ll keep my distance. It’s for the better._

* * *

_It’s been a very long time since I felt genuine happiness pour into my heart. The strict sexual attraction I feared had infested me with no way back has now shifted into something grand and hovering, and I feel it right at the horizon, I feel it peaking, and I know it will come down soon. I wonder—when do I break? I’ve been ghosting around the house, walking around wearing less and less, lingering by the shopping list held to the fridge by a lizard magnet with only one thought in mind: the confession, his denial. Confession. Denial. The weight I settled on my own shoulders is heavy._

_I’ve left him notes and meaningful looks, I’ve tried to be as open to this conversation as possible—I want him to ignite something, instead of doing it all on my own. That way, maybe I won’t feel like I’m coming on too strong. We both know it’s there, the thick cloud of reason, and we both know one of us has to cut through it._

* * *

This following entry is stained with tear marks.

_I did it on the night we met, and I’ve been doing it on casual occasion, usually after something he does sparks emotion within me. I thought I’d grown beyond feeling things, but I shrink under the sole weight of an American born man moving or looking at me the way Eren does. No one else has looked at me this way. His eyes pierce me and eat their way into my soul, and I’m not sure I can bare my raw being more than I already have._

_While I see no taboo, it lingers still. In the air, in the very scent of this house, the smell of air conditioning and late spring wind. It rattles through me. Ravishes and obliterates. And when my poisonous desire levels, all I know to do is to carry the spark, the dulling flame, out of myself. It crowbars its way inside through Eren’s way of handling me, and breaks out after I start thinking—so maybe the solution is to not think._

_I didn’t do Wallace. I didn’t do RV village. But it’s going to look like I did._

_It’s going to look like I did._

_On Eren’s birthday, I’d been a resident of Greencastle only for a week, and though I had a map and quite some exploration jotted down on my makeshift resume, I picked out a bad location for my first victim—who knew EVERYONE knew of that barn? I didn’t. The word got out, and it set me back. And now, as I operate as someone who is more of a pacifist than he is an arsonist, the real threat of Greencastle has set sail._

_I want to tell him I only do the bare minimum, that I thread carefully, that I do no harm, that I’m not insane—that all this is is the internalized fear of loving a man—the one thing I was never allowed to do, never taught how to handle, never given as an option._

* * *

Not for a day in my life will I forget Levi’s arrival.

It’s 4th of June. I drift through and around the house all morning, picking at something whenever I pass through the kitchen, because it finally crashes over me I haven’t eaten in days. Not that I’ve gotten immediately taunt, but lying on my back puts strain over my hipbones, and my stomach is angrily knocking, asking to be fed.

The sun hasn’t risen high enough to break through the grove of trees surrounding the yard. The pool, spared of sunlight, looks icy and deep, but I decide to finally go swim.

I strip down completely naked in a thin stripe of light where the sun does manage to fight the sway of birch trees and spare me some warmth. My clothes are left in a messy heap by my feet. I shake my boxers off my ankle, sit down on the freezing tiles and slowly lower myself in the cold water.

I wish it went over my head, but it doesn’t. Instead it washes at my chest, bouncing off in small ripples, creating such delicate sound that barely rings in the silence of the morning.

I realize that, not only have I finally eaten today, but also that this counts as my first shower in a good while.

I sink lower and let the water wash over my head. Some of it gets in my nose, and the smell of chloride neutralizes the stuffiness pollen makes me suffer from, sometimes. I do think I could blame it on all the crying I’ve done. I doubt I cried this much as a kid. Maybe I’m going in reverse.

The puffiness and feeling of being swollen I experience slowly leaves with the cold water. My body floats however it wants to. I ascend with every inhale, and sink with every exhale.

There is no point in fighting anything. I’ve said it many times before, and I’m not afraid to say it again: commitment is what I fear. Everything I grow to love comes to an end. I won’t close my eyes and pretend that I don’t see Levi and I falling apart once summer is over.

I would vow to be his forever, and I wouldn’t break the vow—because I _know_ myself—but what _he_ thinks and does is beyond my control. I don’t want to be completely immersed in everything that goes on in his life. I only want to, as much as it is within my capability, make him happy and lead a healthy, fruitful life, with me or without.

I rest my chin on the cold tiles. Something hot streaks my cheeks, and I close my eyes.

If all it takes for me to not get hurt is never being in love, I will be known for having a stone cold heart.

Through the cypress trees planted all along the road, I hear footsteps. The crackles of rubber soles meeting asphalt and its little flyaway rocks. I stand in the water, unmoving. Waiting. The sound vanishes, but I wait still.

The open terrace door lets through the sound of my— _our_ —front door creaking.

I wait. I’ve waited my whole life, for everything. Life itself is just a series of waiting, waiting, waiting.

“Eren?” Levi’s soft voice calls from inside, and as much as I want to respond, my throat is tied.

I wait for what seems an eternity and finally understand what everyone meant when they said time is relative and ticks differently for each of us. Seconds have never been so fractured before.

He emerges from the house, through the terrace door, and our eyes meet. Soundless, Levi throws himself down the stairs, the shoes tied to his backpack dangling. He drops it on the dry grass of the lawn and runs. I push myself up, out of the pool, all of the water falling off me in abrupt waves, right in time to embrace Levi—wet, naked, _crying_.

He shakes and breathes against my ear, runs his hands up and down my slippery back, fingers digging anywhere he can dig them in. I just hold him tight by his waist, one arm slung around his neck so I can bury my nose in his greasy hair and breathe up for the first time in a week. Levi’s frivolous shaking does things to me, being naked, and to chase the thought away, I pull off, taking his face in my hands.

His beautiful, tan face, his taunting silver eyes. I let my wet thumb glide across his lower lip, push it around, eyes roaming all over his features to take them in like it’s the first time I’ve ever seen him, like I was _just_ granted vision.

The water still drips from me, but neither of us care.

Levi reaches up to kiss me, more eager than he has ever been; his fingers try to dig in my hair, but it’s kinky and wet, so he just pulls at it in need, in fear—in something. We kiss, long and deep, and lazy, almost, but I’d rather say it’s charged. It’s more powerful than our first, for its own reasons.

I let him undress by himself. At this point, sun has reached the pool and it’s beginning to warm up. While Levi works his pants down, I get back in the water and watch him. His legs are scraped, scratched—like he’d been walking through thorny bushes, which he might’ve been doing, now that I give it a thought—his hip is bruised, and his elbows have scabs. The beautiful, sleek hands I once admired are now quite rough-looking. There’s dirt underneath his fingernails. I’ve never seen him like that.

Levi resists jumping and gets in like I did: by lowering himself in. He plunges underneath the surface in one swift motion, soaping away at his hair with no soap in hand. The water loses its clearness only slightly.

We haven’t spoken a word to each other until now.

“It feels good to be home,” Levi says between spitting in the water.

“It’s good to have you back,” I respond, swimming up to him. Our bodies merge, warming each other, and I pull him close by his waist. Levi’s eyes fall shut. Every eyelash of his is dripping wet, dark, curled upwards at the end. He drags his nose against my neck, inhales, and kisses.

My head falls back.

I can’t resist him.

Hands hooked behind his knees, I lift him up, with his back pressed against the edge of the pool, and we stand like that. Eloped. Together.

“You seem impervious to the fact that I’m more hard than ever,” he whispers at one point, and I laugh. I just laugh.

Above all, it’s good to be like this again, even if this now feels like a chess game in which I’ve went from pawn, to rook, to queen. There’s no disputing that the queen is the most mobile and powerful piece on the board. My current knowledge and control over the situation combined, that’s exactly what I am.

I deliberately avoid sex to save it for later. Later when, save why—I don’t know, but I’m not ready yet. It’s already overwhelming to have him near me again, looking like he does, shoving his foot down my pants while I’m at my laptop and everything.

Something has changed, however. I notice, when we awkwardly ignite conversations, that he’s different from before. He hasn’t just gotten tan and lost some soft tissue in his cheeks, and earned dubious nicks and bruises I don’t question, it’s in his smile, I think—it’s more genuine. I don’t inquire about the field trip he never went on, and he doesn’t bring it up either. It feels to me that he knows I know.

We are one person. Two people with only three months left. We are four for each other, and I refer to the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

* * *

Journal entry:

_Monday, 5 th of June. Turns out we’d both lost sense of time. He was away for two days longer than supposed, which speaks within itself—he wasn’t in Philadelphia with his classmates. I didn’t comment on that and played stupid. Levi ran two days late for his graduation gown and suit fittings, but managed to make it anyway. I’m craving to see the suit. I heard Kenny is going to pay for it._

* * *

_Tuesday, 6 th of June. Graduation day. I did as much as I physically could by at least driving him places, squeezing his hand, his shoulder, taking all of him in. He had sweat beads on his nose that I licked off. He looked good. The suit was great, it fit his frame. Underneath it he wore a pale yellow shirt that matched his hair, which was, not very characteristically, slicked back. I gave Levi the class ring I got on my own graduation (we all bought ours near the end of our senior year), which will soon be accompanied by his own._

_After dropping Levi off, I headed to work for rehearsals. The debut was at 8 PM, and I only got home late at night. I feel disorientated, but at least this is over. This whole fucking rut is over._

_I came home to him curled up in my bed, getting much-needed sleep for the graduation party we’re both going to._

* * *

_Kinozvezda_ turns out to be the Russian word for movie star, and Levi claims that’s what I look like with the fur coat on—the same fur coat I am trying to make look good after dry cleaning, but it just looks blown up now.

There has been some unresolved tension between us. I try to pretend it’s the graduation ordeal, and push everything I know back and away.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t make it,” I cut in, flattening the spiky awn. “I really wanted to. I know it was important to you.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Levi is nonchalant with the response. He’s sitting cross-legged in front the mirror, smearing Christa’s black eyeliner on his waterline. “It was kind of awful, not at all what I expected after all the movies I’ve watched. I don’t know. I mean, it was fine, it’s just a graduation, you didn’t miss anything.”

“Levi, I wanted to be there, and I wasn’t. I’m sorry.”

He looks up at me through the reflection. We share a dosed moment. Then, he looks away. “It’s okay. You look just about dumb as shit in that fur coat right now. Try wetting it?”

“Like when your hair gets frizzy?” I lean down to sip my iced tea through a straw.

“Yeah. It might flatten a bit. I think my mom did that to her coats. We always ran late for chain events because of our clothes. My tapered pants were never really tapered.”

“Tapered pants are supposed to stay tapered, aren’t they?”

“I’m not sure. I wouldn’t call myself a big tapered pant expert, but do me a solid and ask that to someone at the party tonight.”

I huff in my glass.

I like the cozy feeling of us getting ready for the party together. It’s like a bonding moment, taken we’ve never done this before.

 _Gold_. Channel Russian royalty with an Anna Karenina themed bash. Think rich colors, rich clothes, and lots of bling. What a promising thematic for a party, isn’t it? It begs to be attended. Levi and I settle on looking as rich as our closets can possibly give way, while also looking just a smudge like two lost Soundcloud rappers in a 1950’s setting. Levi goes out of his way to put together an outfit that would lend him a smart look, characteristic to his image and nationality, and I end up with the whole loud setting of a _traficante de drogas mexicano._

I first considered pulling an Al Pacino stunt and pieced together something similar to what he’d worn in Scarface. Hawaiian shirt plus flares, plus matching color blazer, plus signature gold chain. All of that came off when Levi mentioned I look like an 80’s porn star, who, incidentally, had just gotten fired from said spot. He tossed me a black fishnet shirt he’d just tried on, and I ended up forcing myself in it somehow—and if on him it had looked almost wearable, it was a ripping-at-the-seams crop top for me. This is what I’d wear on a gay underground rave, and maybe not quite to a graduation party full of underage cookies.

When we tried on our finalized outfits in the afternoon, we both came to conclude I look like an idiot—at least in daylight—and that Levi could very well serve as my red right hand prostitute.

“Power couple,” Levi muffled around the cigarette he had in his mouth.

“Bonnie and Clyde,” I sourly mentioned. He sort of had a point. “I think we look really vulgar in this, Levi.”

“Vulgar or just a little risqué?”

“A lot risqué. Two scatological, indecent gay men arrive to a formal graduation bash—whose sole intention is to celebrate twelve long years behind your back, by the way—and this is a Christian school, _by the way._ Our graduation party was held in someone’s apartment. Yours takes place in some guesthouse bordering French mansion. No, Levi, we look cheap. Too cheap for that.”

“Cheap?” He echoes, lifting my chain.

“That was a Freudian slip.”

“It better. No, really, it better, because I’m staying in this. I don’t even look that bad.”

“Your nipples might poke holes in that shirt with the slightest Northern breeze,” I comment.

Levi throws his head back in laughter. “Alright, Al Capone, you take care of my nipples and I’ll take care of your ass busting out of those pants.”

With “those pants” he means the high-waisted mom jeans I might’ve taken from Christa, the most petite woman I know. This breeds another idea. “I think Christa has some temporary gold tattoos.”

“Those Coachella ones, I bet.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think they might make us look better?”

“Yeah,” I repeat. “I mean, we can’t look any worse.”

Turns out we can, and I was wrong.

Like two raccoons who just tumbled out of an indie rock festival’s garbage disposal, we pull up to the parking lot of the place, which, personally, intimidates me by looking like someone took my aging house and upgraded it. We thought being late on purpose would make us look better, as Kanye West made “fashionably late” into quite a thing, but even the Kanye West arrival couldn’t make us, whatever we were, better.

Of course, as Christian school post-graduates, most of them look quite conventional and go out of their way only as much as wearing shorter cocktail dresses and taking off the blazers of their suits. I hadn’t thought of this before—that times might’ve not changed.

Most of these people were not only conventional, but underage. I notice some older graduates that, just like me, have infiltrated the function through their minor love interests, and feel a slight pang of worry I look too old and predatory for this kind of event.

With time, the public warms up to our outfits through illegal drinking. Someone agrees taking pictures of us with the camera I brought with me. While wandering around the place and trying to make something out of it by taking pictures myself, I convince Levi he shouldn’t drink, because _I_ will and someone has to drive us home, and, because, in stories of raid drills, I’ve heard you can get a lot of shit for underage drinking.

I’m wary of leaving my car out there in the parking lot. Parking lots for high schoolers are the hatching spot for minor vandalism, fucking on cars and smoking weed.

To make me think about it less, Levi hands me a drink. “Have this.”

I pluck at the lemon on the rim of the glass. “What’s this?”

“I don’t know, tequila. I have no idea what kids are having these days.”

What I like most about Levi is that he often forgets of his own role, age and existence.

Hands in the back pockets of each other’s pants, we lean against the bar counter and observe the crowd. As the flashiest people of the party, I feel like we should be doing some quite risqué shit, but this fits us better. We’re the wallflower type.

The music playing is pretty much to the point: get people going, but in a chic way. I remember being supposed to help out with the playlist, but my guess is that people don’t rely on Levi too much, so I shrug it off and empty my glass. I empty several glasses while we try to socialize as a pair and on our own, and end up strolling around together anyway.

We find ourselves back at the bar counter, leaning against it. Again.

My eyes trail away from the crowd to Levi by my side. He looks up at me, all the makeup around his eyes meaningfully smudged.

“Hey, Bonnie,” I whisper.

“Hey, Clyde.”

“Do you think anyone would mind if I kissed you?”

Levi looks away, runs his tongue over his teeth. It looks like he’s skimming the place for certain people who _might_ mind, indeed, and it paints me thoroughly jealous.

“No.” He clacks his tongue. “Go to town with it. This is the last time I see any single one of these fucking stuck up idiots, so we might as well fuck right here and make a show out of it.”

“Let’s not do that.”

“We can always go find a room, you know,” he says, looking around again. It’s unnerving.

I leave his side for a second to fetch another drink. When I swim back up to him, he hastily turns to me and says: “Let’s go. Before you’ve had too much.”

“Where to?” I cough, confused. “I’ve already had too much, personally.”

Without asking, Levi takes my hand and leads me straight across the foggy room. We run into some people, and I try to apologize for the both of us. Once I don’t have strobe lights piercing my eyes every other second, I can open them right in time to feel my feet being pulled up a staircase. It smells of an old attic, and maybe it is an old attic; I’ve had little experience with these. The lack of light doesn’t help me subside what is what.

“Levi, where are we?” I ask, pulling at his hand.

“Hideout.”

“What hideout?”

“There’s a blocked balcony somewhere here. I noticed it when we arrived, I’ve been ogling it for some time. No one seems to be taking this door. So, we’re taking this door.”

I feel stupidly hot in my coat. “Okay.”

It starts breaking through with the aid of alcohol. And then, wow, not to be the guy who likes trashing parties, but it hits me like a steel pan in the head: _I’ve already forgotten and moved on, and all this is is just us spending time together, like we used to._

Maybe the place he leads us to is secretive, in some way, so we can ignite the conversation our future life—or lives, separate—depends on. I hadn’t planned on breaking it this early after his arrival, but if a chance to do so is served to me on a silver plate, I might as well.

The long staircase comes to an end when I feel a gush of wind run through my hair. I can already see what looks like a hallway, none of the lamps lit, the only source of light being the starry sky and how light blue it looks during summers through a row of narrow windows. The hallway ends with an open balcony door.

It’s awfully dark.

“This looks right,” Levi whispers, and I continue to blindly follow him down the hall.

“This looks like The Shining, Levi.”

“So—right.”

Out on the balcony, we can overlook the entire parking lot, the nearby curve of the river, and the stream of students of weird age ranges going in and out the guesthouse. My eyes pin some couple in the very far corner of the lot; the girl is sitting on the hood of the car, and the guy has his ear pressed to her chest.

I’m quite fond of the sight.

Levi lets go of my hand and sits down. He slips his legs underneath the rails where there is a gap and lets them dangle a good few feet above ground.

“Come, sit,” he says.

I do.

We sit flush against each other. My forehead bores a hole into one of the smooth planks of the rail as I fully enjoy the feeling of being so close to death. Balconies always scare me, or at least leaning over the rails does. I always feel like it’s going to give out, I’ll gain credible momentum and fall. Falling from this height, I would break my neck, probably.

“What are you thinking about?” I silently ask, turning my head sideways, just a little bit.

“Kissing you.” But instead of kissing me, he asks the same thing in return. “You?”

“Me too,” I lie and reach over.

We share a quick, wet kiss. Our hands somehow found a way to clasp around each other during it, and we let them stay that way.

I’m the first one to pull my legs to myself, since, quite frankly, I’m not good with heights and never have been. Instead, I sit facing him for what seems minutes five, ten, maybe, observing his profile until he mirrors my pose. Levi’s whole being vibrates with alien energy. He, who is usually the one to maintain intense eye contact keeps looking away, rubbing my knuckles with his thumb, fidgeting. Not overwhelmingly, but noticeably.

“You’re talkative,” I comment.

“I was going to be, but it left me on our way up.”

“That’s fine, I can wait.”

“Well, no, if you put it like that, it feels as if I’m making you wait, and I’d rather not. I wanted this to be quick and over with.”

“If you’re breaking up with me, it better be quick,” I joke, but the genuine fear in my voice must’ve gotten to him.

“Do me a solid: shut up,” Levi says. “I’m not trying to break up with you.”

“Yeah?”

“Quite the opposite.”

My stomach dips. The movement of his thumb stops, and the graze of his rings leaves my knuckles, too.

“I was thinking,” he continues, turns his head, and I somehow register this as his most graceful motion to date, “that if I was looking forward to a future with you, we should probably reach some grand degree of honesty between us.”

It’s as if every muscle in my body tenses. My spine straightens like a whip.

 _Maybe I won’t even have to tell him anything._ He comes home, brings me along to some posh rich kid graduate party, pulls me to a crumbling balcony and confesses of all his wrongdoings—what better scenario to rekindle the flame?

“Continue,” I silently say. I hope he can’t see me wagging my tail like a large, dumb Newfoundland dog.

Levi presses his lips together and smiles. “I know I’ve been a lot. There is some provisory stuff I kind of have to break to you, and I don’t know whether you’ll stay with me or run.”

“Okay,” I whisper.

“I’ll start off by saying I never went on that fucking field trip, but I think you know that already,” he says. His eyebrows are pulled in a worried little knot.

“Yeah, I got that feeling from the size of your bag.”

“God, that felt good to get off my shoulders—both the bag and the secret.” Levi _physically_ breathes up, now toying with my left hand. “I think I needed that time off to think by myself. By nature. Post-exam stress just coated my head. I went on a week-long hike, Eren, a week-long! You can’t fathom the places I crossed on my way. I fell off a cliff, too. One cut on my leg feels infected.”

“We’ll look at it back home.”

“I’ll show you my route. Did you know I wasn’t on a field trip?”

I sit back and think rationally. “I don’t know. I _felt_ like you weren’t there with them. You didn’t have signal most of the time, rarely said much and never texted.”

“Yeah. I’m sorry. I bet I scared you. But it was much needed time to think everything over, mull through it, and finally come to terms.”

“To terms with what?” I inquire.

“That I’m in love with you.”

“How poignant. You needed a week in the wilderness to understand what has been spoon-fed to you since the 30th of March.”

He slaps his knuckles on my chest.

“Eren,” Levi then says, his voice oddly soft; weak, even.

“Levi,” I return, lacking the unadulterated essence of how he said my name.

“Clyde.”

“Bonnie.”

I let him mince me in his loving gaze and don’t look away. Levi has been fumbling with my left hand for a while now, folding each finger back and forth, shoving his fingers in the gaps between mine. Now sweat begins to crease as he’s left his whole palm unmoving, against mine.

“I want to give you something,” he says. “And I don’t know how to do it.” Pauses. “Maybe having it in your possession would make you understand why I had to take a break.”

“I can close my eyes, if you want me to,” I say, knowing full and well that this is the journal we’re speaking of.

“That would be great. Do that.”

I do that.

Levi continues drawing ambiguous lines on my open palm. It tickles.

“I don’t know how else to tell it to you,” he whispers, dragging his finger from my palm down to my leg, along my knee, up my thigh. He hooks it there, behind the waistband of my jeans. Holds it. Then, moves it back to my palm, pulled in a fist. “I’m scared.”

“I know,” I whisper back.

“You know?” He toys with my index.

“Look, you said we were being honest and reaching new heights with that, didn’t you?”

My eyes are closed, but it feels like he nods. I feel his fingers bend my middle finger.

“So be it, honesty,” I grunt. “You know I love you more than anyone _anywhere_ would ever be capable of, right? Despite everything, it’s still _you_ I want to come back to every day. It’s you I trust. It’s you today, it was you yesterday, it will be you tomorrow. No one can love you like I can. This is stronger than anything else.”

He taps at my ring finger, silent.

“I read it,” I say. “Your journal.”

Levi’s hand freezes.

What I feel slipping on my finger—on my finger, not _in_ my hand, nothing close to a sewn 64 page notebook—by itself, with no help from Levi’s behalf, is a ring.


End file.
